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The 

Art  and  the  Business  of 

Story  Writing 


^^^^ 


THE  MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

NEW  YOR-K   •    BOSTON    •    CJUCAGO 
ATLANTA    •    SAN   FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Limited 

tJC»IDON   •    BOMBAY        CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  LiBb 

TORONTO 


The 

Art  and  the  Business  of 
Story  Writing 


BY 

WALTER  B.  PITKIN 

Associate  Professor  of  Philosophy  in  the  Pchool  of  Journalism 
of  Columbia  University. 


0f 


THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

1922 


COPTRIQHT,  1912, 

Bt  the  macmillan  company 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.    Published  November.  1912 


TO  THE  TEACHER 


This  book  is  an  outgrowth  of  the  behef  that  fiction  has  a, 
technique  no  less  definite,  though  much  less  rigid,  than 
the  technique  of  perspective  drawing  or  of  harmony  and 
counterpoint  in  music.  Such  a  conviction  is  not  easily 
reached,  for  the  laws  of  story  construction  elude  their  many 
searchers  with  a  persistence  most  exasperating.  The 
long-discouraged  investigator  naturally  falls  into  the 
thought  that  pure  anarchy  reigns  in  the  domain  of  fantasy; 
and  he  disguises  the  absurdity  of  this  thought  under  the 
hypothesis  that  a  story  is  the  free  creation  of  mind, 
spontaneous  in  origin  and  in  manner  of  outworking. 
Unfortunately  for  the  development  of  fictional  technique, 
the  half-truth  of  the  hypothesis  helps  to  conceal  the  flaw 
in  his  argument.  There  is  no  doubt  that,  in  some  sense, 
a  story  is  a  free  creation  and  spontaneous;  and  freedom 
seems  to  connote  a  certain  emancipation  from  law: 
hence  the  plausibility  of  saying  that  the  fiction  writer 
works  without  rule  or  principle,  following  only  the  caprice 
of  his  imagination.  The  inference,  however,  is  only 
plausible.  There  is  no  soundness  in  it;  and,  were  we  here 
discussing  ethics  or  metaphysics,  we  might  demonstrate 
this  assertion  by  pointing  out  that  free  creation  and  spon- 
taneity do  not  involve  unpatterned  behavior  nor  blind, 
impulsive  fashioning.  If  chaos  lurks  anywhere  in  the 
whole  performance,  it  lurks  only  in  the  primitive  uprush 
of  fleeting,  disjointed  imageries  which  precede,  suggest, 
and  inspire  the  work  of  art.  The  work  of  art,  as  Poe  and 
many  another  have  said,  is  a  piece  of  cunning  and  calcula- 
tion no  less  deliberate  than  the  selling-price  of  umbrellas; 
and,  once  more  like  this  computation,  the  artistry  of  the 
fiction  writer  is  regulated  by  two  elemental  factors,  his 
own  purposes  and  his  material.  If  he  has  not  discovered 
the  principles  in  these  which  direct  his  choice,  it  is  because 
they  are  prodigiously  intricate. 

The  technique  of  pictorial  composition  was  early  dis- 


586476 


vi  TO  THE  TEACHER  "— '^ 

covered,  not  because  painters  are  cleverer  than  novelists, 
but  because  the  painter's  material  is  comparatively 
simple.  His  purpose  is  to  depict  Things  as  They  Are 
Seen.  Now,  these  arrange  themselves  in  space  according 
to  a  few  easily  detectable  mathematical  laws,  namely  the 
laws  of  perspective,  while  their  colors  and  the  harmonies  of 
them  reduce  to  a  dozen  relations  most  of  which  even  the 
untrained  eye  partially  discerns.  So  too  with  the  stuff  of 
music,  which,  as  the  philosopher  Pythagoras  discovered 
twenty-five  centuries  ago,  orders  itself  according  to  a  few 
elementary  ratios  which,  in  symphony  and  opera,  assume 
a  bewildering  complexity  quite  unlike  their  pure  nature. 
It  is  not  alone  the  simplicity  of  musical  and  pictorial 
principles  that  has  brought  them  so  speedily  to  light. 
They  are  obvious  by  virtue  of  two  other  peculiarities: 
first,  the  physical  stabiUty  and  definiteness  of  their  ma- 
terials; and,  secondly,  the  kinship  of  all  the  materials 
they  relate.  Space  forms,  colors,  and  sounds  are  physical 
things  which  may  be  produced  at  will,  isolated  for  scru- 
tiny, arranged  and  analyzed  by  the  aid  of  mechanical  in- 
struments. Thus  through  sheer  accessibility,  they  aid 
their  investigator.  And,  in  the  second  place,  the  signifi- 
cant relations  within  each  of  the  arts  which  deal  with  such 
materials  are  relations  among  homogeneous  things. 
That  is  to  say,  harmony  is  a  relation  between  tone  and 
tone,  perspective  is  a  relation  between  mass  and  mass  in 
space,  and  color  laws  are  relations  between  hue  and  hue. 
Broadly  speaking,  we  may  say  that  all  such  relations  are 
much  clearer  than  those  which  obtain  between  hetero- 
geneous things.  In  evidence  of  this  fact,  we  have  only  to 
observe  the  peculiarly  difficult  material  of  the  story 
writer. 

His  objects  are  what  Aristotle  saw  them  to  be,  "men  in 
action."  It  is  human  nature,  as  it  manifests  itself  in  be- 
havior, that  he  manipulates  imaginatively,  endows  with 
strangely  beautiful  forms,  and  sometimes  copies.  But 
what  is  this  human  nature?  Nobody  toiows.  The  most 
we  can  say  of  it  is  that  it  embraces  a  curious  horde  of  con- 
trary impulses,  likes  and  dislikes,  retrospects  and  fore- 
sights, all  more  or  less  organized  for  the  furtherance  of 
life  and  the  mastery  of  affairs  physical.  These  warring 
factors  bear,  in  many  instances,  not  the  remotest  likeness 


TO  THE  TEACHER  vii 

one  to  another.  So  different  are  they  in  flavor,  power, 
and  direction  that  some  persons  deny  their  relationship 
altogether,  saying  with  Paul  that  they  belong  to  two  men, 
or  saying  with  modern  psychiatry  that  they  belong  to  a 
multiple  personality.  Hunger  and  an  eye  for  beauty  are 
alien  capacities;  yet  both  enter  into  life,  qualifying  its 
configurations.  Your  sense  of  justice  and  your  day- 
dreams are  infinitely  more  different  than  are  the  bass  drum 
and  the  violin  which  Wagner  brings  into  harmony;  yet 
somehow  they  combine  in  your  character  and  contribute 
to  it.  Finally — crassest  heterogeneity  of  all — there  come 
together  in  every  incident  of  human  life  those  two  effi- 
ciencies commonly  called  the  psychical  and  the  physical, 
mind  and  matter,  soul  and  body.  All  conduct,  actual  and 
prospective,  matter-of-fact  and  fantastic,  thoughtless  and 
reasoned,  is  inextricably  bound  up  with  the  stuff  of  which 
temples  and  turnips  are  made.  No  man  can  do  anything, 
however  trivial,  without  doing  it  to  something  or  for  the 
sake  of  something.  His  nature,  we  might  better  say,  is 
neither  fulfilled  nor  expressed  save  insofar  as  he  changes 
his  environment,  or  at  least  actually  perpetuates  its 
status  quo.  He  is  known,  not  by  his  faith  but  only  by  his 
works.  Indeed,  we  must  say  even  more.  His  beliefs, 
his  most  unworldly  thoughts  are,  as  revelations  and  tests 
of  his  character,  utterly  meaningless  except  they  refer  to 
the  furniture  and  lodgers  of  the  world  visible.  Strip  a 
man  of  the  gold  toward  which  avarice  drives  him,  of  the 
fleshpots  he  craves,  of  the  enemies  he  loathes,  of  the  shout- 
ing in  the  marketplace  which  ambition  sighs  for,  and  of 
every  other  substance  of  his  appetites  and  antipathies; 
and  there  will  remain  of  him  a  formless  and  unnamable 
nothing,  so  far  as  any  human  vision  or  insight  reaches. 
Literally,  all  these  things  give  body  to  his  soul.  Only  by 
their  aid  does  his  character  take  on  solidity  and  contour. 
In  this  state  of  affairs,  it  seems  to  me,  is  the  ancient 
obstacle  of  a  sound  literary  technique;  and  here  too 
whispers  the  hint  of  its  removal.  The  fiction  writer 
would  depict  human  character,  in  some  of  its  phases;  the 
laws  of  its  present  presentation  must  be  found  in  the 
material  of  human  character;  this  material  includes  a 
great  variety  of  alien,  discordant  elements  mental  and 
physical;  only  certain  combinations  of  these  are  possible 


viii  TO  THE  TEACHER 

and  a  much  smaller  number  is  pleasing;  and  so  the  writer's 
first  task  is  to  discover  such.  But  what  does  this  under- 
taking entail,  if  not  an  analysis  of  those  very  elements? 
He  must  proceed  exactly  as  painter  and  musical  composer 
do.  They  find  the  major  laws  of  their  techniques  in  the 
qualities  and  relations  of  their  raw  material,  namely  in 
space  forms  and  colors,  in  tones  and  rhythm  forms. 
Mastery  of  these  is  an  indispensable  forerunner  of  every 
good  picture  and  melody.  So  too  with  good  fiction;  it  is 
impossible  without  a  thorough,  though  perhaps  very  much 
restricted,  knowledge  of  the  mind's  workings  and  of  the 
world  it  works  over. 

If  this  is  true,  then  the  laws  of  fiction  are  not  to  be 
sought  in  rhetoric,  which  is  the  science  of  conveying 
ideas  effectively  and  not  at  all  the  art  of  shaping  the  sub- 
ject matter  conveyed.  Neither  are  they  to  be  found 
through  the  study  of  literary  styles;  for  style  proves  to  be 
either  the  more  refined,  more  personal  way  of  conveying 
thoughts  or  else  an  inexact  name  for  the  pecuHar  objects 
which  a  given  artist  is  fond  of  reporting  to  us.  No,  the 
novelist's  and  the  story  writer's  constructive  principles 
lie  in  no  such  direction;  they  lie  wholly  in  the  realms  of 
psychology  and  worldly  wisdom.  The  patterns  of  life 
are  revealed  only  in  life;  and  life  is  composed  of  people  and 
affairs. 

The  following  introduction  to  fictional  technique  at- 
tempts to  give  the  learner  a  few  hints  about  the  broadest 
characteristics  of  human  conduct,  especially  those  which 
fix  the  dramatic  relation  of  man  to  his  environment. 
My  approach  to  this  topic  has  been  set  in  advance  by 
modern  psychology,  especially  by  the  writings  of  John 
Dewey;  but  in  every  other  respect  my  analysis  owes  most 
to  modern  stories  and  their  masters.  It  is,  indeed,  pri- 
marily an  empirical  research,  not  a  detached  theory;  its 
findings  have  been  drawn  from  those  same  stories,  or  at 
least  verified  in  them.  Like  every  other  investigation  of 
human  nature,  it  has  encountered  depths  and  entangle- 
ments which  refuse  to  be  cleared  up  in  a  pretty  epigram 
or  to  be  evaded  with  a  loose  generalization.  Wherever 
that  has  happened,  I  have  chosen  the  less  pleasant  path. 
I  have  described  several  problems  in  language  which  may 
well  bewilder  those  students  who  know  little  of  coii- 


TO  THE  TEACHER  ix 

temporary  psychology,  and  may  even  persuade  them 
that,  if  all  this  be  j&ctional  technique,  then  they  will  never 
manage  to  write  stories.  This  danger  prompts  me  to 
address  the  teacher  here. 

It  is  the  teacher's  business  to  say  what  a  brief  text-book 
must  leave  unsaid,  to  furnish  details  where  it  can  only 
throw  out  suggestions,  and  to  correct  its  erroneous  or 
misleading  statements.  In  fictional  technique  these 
duties  become  peculiarly  arduous,  for  they  require  him 
to  pursue  psychological  analyses  and  to  discourse  upon  all 
the  everyday  affairs  which  figure  in  dramatic  situations. 
He  becomes  perforce  a  Professor  of  Things  in  General. 
And  I  believe  he  will  succeed  in  the  measure  that  he 
frankly  accepts  this  title  and  leads  his  classes  to  scrutinize 
mankind  as  the  draughtsman  scrutinizes  masses,  outlines, 
and  distances.  How  he  shall  accomplish  this  in  detail 
he  alone  can  discover;  for  his  method  depends  intimately 
upon  his  fund  of  information,  his  philosophy  of  life,  and 
his  instinctive  manner  of  dealing  with  people.  But  there 
are  at  least  three  general  rules  which  should  bind  him: 
he  should  forget  rhetoric,  he  should  preach  no  imitation  of 
masterpieces,  and  he  should  compel  students  to  write 
much.  The  last  rule  requires  no  comment.  As  for  the 
first,,  the  student  who  has  difficulty  in  choosing  the  right 
word  or  ending  a  sentence  must  not  be  allowed  to  air 
such  troubles  before  a  class  in  story  technique,  which  is 
concerned  with  wholly  different  problems.  It  is  hard 
enough,  at  best,  to  hold  fictional  structure  and  rhetoric 
apart  in  the  average  beginner's  mind;  rather  than  increase 
the  difficulty,  it  is  advisable  to  tolerate  a  moderate 
amount  of  bad  writing.  As  for  the  imitation  of  master- 
pieces, it  is  harmful  chiefly  because  it  turns  the  writer  from 
his  proper  subject-matter  and  so  postpones  his  hour  of 
insight.  A  great  story  is  a  picture  of  human  nature, 
it  is  not  human  nature  itself.  Being  a  picture,  it  lights 
up  some  one  little  spot  of  life  and  presents  this  in  mag-^..  ^ 
nificent  isolation.  Always  it  presents  an  individual,  a  V— 
pecuHar  dramatic  situation,  and  a  somewhat  unique-^ 
solution.  But  this  very  triumph  of  art  tends  to  hide  from 
the  student  of  technique  what  he  most  passionately 
seeks,  which  is  the  laws  and  not  the  instances  of  life. 
To  ape  the  appropriate  language  of  Plato,  the  concrete 


X  ■    TO  THE  TEACHER 

individual  blurs  and  distorts  the  'pure  forms'  of  human 
nature;  and  this  too  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  these  'forms' 
are  all  the  principles  peculiar  to  individual  life.  The 
heroes  and  heroines  of  the  hundred  best  stories  tell  us  too 
little  about  life,  precisely  as  the  hundred  best  paintings 
fall  far  short  of  revealing  the  laws  of  color  and  composi- 
tion. They  produce  a  vi\ad  impression,  but  not  under- 
standing. 

The  final  test  of  every  technique  is  its  usefulness  in 
practice.  So  judged,  the  following  studies  seem  to  pos- 
sess a  certain-  value.  They  have  been  employed  during 
the  past  three  years  in  teaching  about  two  hundred  stu- 
dents, of  whom  nearly,  fifty  have  been  journalists  and 
unattached  professional  writers.  Stories  prepared  merely 
as  class  exercises  in  that  period  have  been  sold  to  all  types 
of  periodicals,  including  The  Atlantic  Monthly,  Every- 
body's, The  American,  The  Outlook,  and  many  others 
equally  prominent.  Incomplete  records  show,  for  these 
same  school-room  products,  the  students  have  received 
nearly  five  thousand  dollars.  Most  of  the  MSS.,  though 
not  the  best  of  them,  came  from  previously  unsuccessful 
pens. 


TO  THE  STUDENT 

This  book  will  not  aid  you  in  the  use  of  English,  It  is 
a  study  of  the  story  writer's  subject-matter  and,  some- 
what incidentally,  of  his  commercial  problems  and  pros- 
pects. It  presupposes  in  you  an  easy  command  of  simple 
narrative  writing. 

Many  important  points  in  the  text  will  not  appear 
unless  you  read  in  advance  the  stories  there  cited  to  illus- 
trate them.  You  should  run  through  each  of  these  stories 
twice;  once  naturally  and  without  analysis  or  criticism, 
and  once  again  in  a  technical  mood,  after  having  studied 
the  text. 

The  majority  of  citations  are  drawn  from  the  following 
works: 

Balzac,   Honore   de — Little  French  Masterpieces,  vol.   4 

(Putnam,  1909). 
Copp^e,  Frangois — Tales  (Harper's,  1890). 
Daudet,   Alphonse — Little    French    MasterpieceSy  vol.   5 

(Putnam,  1909). 
Deland,  Margaret— 0?^  Chester  Tales  (Harper's,  1898). 
Galsworthy,  John — A  Motley  (Scribner's,  1910). 
0.  Kenry—The  Four  Million  (Doubleday,  Page,  1909). 

— Strictly  Business  (Doubleday,  Page,  1909). 

— Whirligigs  (Doubleday,  Page). 
Howells,  W.  D. — A  Pair  of  Patient  Lovers  (Harper's,  1901). 
James,  Henry — The  Wheel  of  Time  (Harper's,  1893). 
Kipling,  Rudyard — Under  the  Deodars,  etc.  (Doubleday, 

Page). 
London,  Jack — Love  of  Life  (Macmillan,  1907). 
Maupassant,  Guy  de — Little  French  Masterpieces,  vol.  6 

(Putnam,  1909). 
Moore,  George — The  Untilled  Field  (Lippincott,  1903). 
Morris,  Gouverneur — It  (Scribner's,  1912). 
Poe,  E.  A. — Tales  of  Mystery  and  Imagination.    In  Every- 
man's Library  (Dutton). 

xi 


xii  TO  THE  STUDENT 

White,    Wm.    Allen— 7n    Our    Town    (The    Macmillan 

Company,  1909). 
Wilkins,  Mary  E.  (Mrs.  Freeman)— A  Humble  Romance 

(Harper's,  1887). 

Perhaps  it  is  not  foolish  to  say  here  that  not  all  of  these 
stories  are  models  of  fictional  art.  They  are  chosen  for 
analysis  because  they  present  certain  striking  virtues  or 
certain  equally  conspicuous  defects,  and  also  because 
they  represent  the  extremes  of  taste,  style,  and  intellec- 
tuality. It  is  in  its  apphcations  to  such  widely  divergent 
types  of  fiction  that  a  theory  of  technique  is  put  to  its 
severest  test. 

The  exercises  at  the  ends  of  chapters  are  very  impor- 
tant. However  distasteful  some  of  th^  may  be,  you 
should  complete  them  conscientiously.  They  cannot  be 
dashed  off.  A  swift  writer  may  finish  them  all  in  about 
two  thousand  hours,  but  most  students  will  consume  three 
thousand  or  more. 

Do  not  be  frightened  if,  after  several  months  of  hard 
work,  you  find  your  writings  stiffer  and  clumsier  than  ever. 
This  deterioration  commonly  accompanies  the  early  stages 
of  technical  study  in  all  the  arts  and  it  does  not  dis- 
appear until  the  principles  of  technique  have  become 
established  habits  and,  as  it  were,  apply  themselves  in  all  i 
the  writer's  thmking.  For  this  reason,  half-masl^ryi-^^ 
technique  is  slavery.  Whoever  begins  the  work  should 
make  earnest  with  it  and  conquer  it,  though  he  labor 
-fijjgyeaiia*-^ 

TEe  best  things  written  on  story  technique  lie  scattered 
thinly  up  and  down  the  long  shelves  of  our  libraries.  Here  a 
paragraph  in  an  essay,  there  a  newspaper  interview  with 
some  author  lies  buried  in  the  files  and  archives;  and  be- 
yond these  there  is  little.  Three  books  there  are,  though, 
which  the  serious  student  may  profitably  consult  on 
many  points.  The  first  is  Clayton  Hamilton's  The 
Materials  and  Methods  of  Fiction  (Baker  &  Taylor,  1908). 
Though  chiefly  concerned  with  the  technique  of  the 
novel — and  in  its  generalities  rather  than  in  its  details — 
the  volume  cannot  fail  to  stimulate  and  enlighten  the 
student,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  Mr.  Hamilton's  point  of 
view  and  several  of  his  most  fundamental  distinctions 


TO  THE  STUDENT  xiii 

are,  in  my  opinion,  incorrect.  The  second  work  to  be 
recommended  is  Bliss  Perry's  A  Study  of  Prose  Fiction 
(Houghton  Mifflin).  In  common  repute,  this  deals  with 
fictional  technique;  in  truth,  though,  it  does  so  but 
slightly.  It  is  rather  a  survey  and  estimate  of  authors 
and  their  ideals.  It  bears  the  same  relation  to  genuine 
technique  that,  say,  an  appreciation  of  Chopin's  musical 
manner  does  to  Jadassohn's  Manual  of  Harmony.  Never- 
theless, as  in  every  clearsighted  study  of  masterpieces,  so 
here;  there  are  developed  not  a  few  principles  and  ideals 
vital  to  one's  understanding  of  literary  craftsmanship. 
The  third  book  is  J.  B.  Esenwein's  Writing  the  Short 
Story  (Hinds  &  Noble,  1908).  As  its  title-page  indicates, 
this  is  'a  practical  handbook';  and  it  possesses  all  the 
virtues  and  all  the  defects  of  such.  As  an  analysis  of 
technique,  it  is  almost  worthless  and  often  ludicrous.  It 
affords  the  reader  no  more  insight  into  the  basic  laws  of 
dramatic  action  and  expression  than  Baedeker's  Guide  to 
Paris  does  into  French  character.  But  as  a  collection  of 
adages,  quotations  from  celebrities,  story  specimens, 
references,  and  commercial  advices,  it  earns  a  place  on 
the  young  writer's  table. 

There  are,  of  course,  many  other  books  on  the  short 
story;  but  those  which  are  good  are  either  history  or 
critifiism  and  hence  not  shaped  to  the  purposes  of  the 
would-be  writer.    So  they  are  not  mentioned  here. 

1 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


INTRODUCTION 


Why  write  fiction?  1.  The  four  ends  of  writing  fic- 
tion, 2.  Writing  for  pleasure,  2.  Writing  for  self-cul- 
ture, 4.  Writing  for  profit,  9.  Writing  for  social  service, 
10.  The  relative  difficulty  of  these  aims,  12.  Shall  it  be  the 
novel  or  the  short  story?  13.     The  purpose  of  this  book,  17. 


PART  I:    THE  ART 

Chapter  I:  What  is  a  Short  Story?  21.  The  double 
ideal,  21.  What  the  single  effect  is,  21.  What  dramatic 
narrative  is,  23.  What  a  plot  is,  24.  What  the  single 
effect  involves,  28.  Thematic  development,  28.  Com- 
parison of  thematic  with  didactic  stories,  31.  Emphatic 
development,  33.  Fundamental  types  of  short  story,  34. 
Classification  of  these  types,  37.  How  other  forms  of 
brief  fiction  differ  from  the  short  story,  37.  The  short 
story  indefinable  in  terms  of  its  material  and  outward 
form,  42.  Criticism  of  alleged  characteristics  of  the 
genre,  42.     Exercises,  49. 

Chapter  II:    What  Shall  You  Write  About?  50. 
.  The  importance   of  this   question,   50.     Limitations  of 
,  theme,  50.     Limits  set  by  the  story  form,  50.     Necessity 
'  of  a  plot,  50.     The  8,000-word  limit,  53.     Limits  of  in- 
tricacy, staging  and  interpretation,  53.     Limit  set  by  the 
writer's    knowledge    and    beliefs,    58.     Only    dramatic 
knowledge  is  necessary,  58.     Sympathy,  not  belief,  re- 
quired, 60.     The  theme  as  limited  by  the  reader,  62. 
Available  story  material,  62.     ^ Human  interest';  what  it 
is,  63.     What  provokes  thought?  64.     The  thought-pro- 
voking situation  is  a  problem,  65.     Three  varieties  of 

XV 


xvi  TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

situations,  66.  The  third  type  fulfills  only  one  story 
ideal,  67.  The  ascending  effect  required,  68.  The  single 
effect  produced  by  depicting  a  conflict,  72.  The  two  pos- 
sible solutions  of  this  conflict,  72.  The  uniquely  char- 
acteristic act,  72.  The  consistent  act  of  violation,  73. 
The  three  levels  of  conflict,  74.  Man  and  the  physical 
world,  74.  Man  and  man,  75.  One  force  with  another 
in  the  same  man,  76.     Exercises,  78. 

Chapter  III:  What  Shall  You  Say  About  It?  82. 
General  principles,  82.  First  tell  the  story,  82.  The  six 
essential  facts  to  cover,  84.  The  material  included  in  the 
simple  report,  85.  The  form  of  presentation,  86.  Inte- 
gration; what  it  is  not,  88.  Integration;  what  it  is,  89. 
Integration  specifically  determined  by  the  particular 
single  effect  chosen,  91.  Integrative  intensifiers,  92. 
What  is  intensity?  92.  The  general  rule  for  intensifica- 
tion, 95.  The  five  story  elements  which  intensify  the 
single  effect,  95. 

Sub-chapter  A:  The  Dominant  Character,  97.  The 
lour  rules  for  handling  the  dominant  character,  97.  Ex- 
planation of  first  rule,  97.  Explanation  of  second  rule,  98. 
Explanation  of  third  rule,  98.  Explanation  of  fourth 
rule,  103.  The  mark  of  human  nature,  103.  Analysis  of 
character,  104.  The  three  stages  of  rational  behavior, 
105.  The  source  of  differences  in  character,  110.  Where 
the  proof  of  character  is  found,  112.  The  error  of  the 
so-called  psychological  story,  112.  Mark  of  the  genume 
psychological  story,  116. 

Exercises,  121. 

Sub-chapter  B:  The  Plot  Action,  126.  Directness, 
126.  Two  indirections,  127.  The  use  of  direct  and  in- 
direct action,  128.  The  two  typical  errors  in  plot  action, 
131.  Irrelevancy,  131.  Over-intensification,  132.  The 
formaUst  fallacy,  133.     Dramatic  necessity,  135. 

Exercises,  138. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS  xvii 

Sub-chapter  C:  The  Order  of  Events,  141.  What 
order  accomplishes,  142.  First  general  law  of  order,  142. 
The  special  problems  of  order,  143.  The  opening  event, 
143.  Ten  types  of  opening  events,  145.  Illustrations  of 
these  types,  146. 

Exercises,  158. 

The  closing  event,  159.  The  direct  denouement,  159. 
The  significant  aftermath,  162.  Interpretative  comment, 
163.  The  distribution  of  events  throughout  the  plot 
action,  166.  Rules  of  this  distribution,  167.  Illustrations 
of  these  rules,  168. 

Sub-chapter  D:  The  Point  of  View,  174.  The  confu- 
sion on  this  subject,  174.  Two  meanings  of  'point  of 
view',  174.  The  angle  of  narration;  its  three  types,  176. 
The  objective,  176.  The  angle  of  the  inactive  witness, 
180.  The  angle  of  a  participant,  185.  Angle  of  narra- 
tion and  grammatical  form,  186. 

Exercises,  188. 

The  artist's  attitude,  190.     Attitude  and  style,  191. 

Sub-chapter  E:  Atmosphere,  193.  What  atmosphere 
is,  193.  Atmosphere  as  the  single  effect,  195.  Why  the 
atmosphere  story  is  difficult,  196.  The  narrow  range  of 
atmospheric  effects,  197.  A  lack  of  harmony  between 
two  types  of  feelings,  199.  The  natural  theme  of  the 
atmosphere  story,  204.  Atmosphere  as  an  intensifier, 
207.  How  the  intensifying  effect  is  conveyed  by  atmos- 
phere, 207.  How  intensifying  atmosphere  is  integrated, 
213.  .  The  law  of  frequency,  215.  The  point  of  view  in 
depicting  the  setting,  216. 

Exercises,  217. 


xviii  TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

PART  II:    THE  BUSINESS  OF  THE  SHORT 
STORY 

The  many  reading  publics,  230.  The  difference  be- 
tween the  novel's  field  and  the  story's,  233.  Nature 
of  the  modern  magazine,  233.  Three  undesired  types  of 
story,  235.  The  so-called  'serious  story,'  238.  The  aim 
of  the  magazine  story,  241.  Modern  literary  speciaUza- 
tion,  244.  Its  rules  of  procedure,  245.  Imaginative  ex- 
perimenting, 246.  The  story  writer's  prospects,  248. 
Aids  in  selling  fiction,  251.  Some  elementary  rules  and 
warnings,  253. 


THE  ART  AND  THE  BUSINESS 
OF  STORY  WRITING 


INTRODUCTION 

The  Purposes 

1.  Why  write  fiction?  This  question  may  seem  im- 
pertinent, at  the  beginning  of  a  book  which  will  be  read  ' 
chiefly  by  persons  who  have  resolved  to  write  fiction. 
But  it  is  not.  It  leads  us  into  a  problem  that  must  be 
squarely  faced  and  cleanly  solved  by  each  man  for  him- 
self, before  he  enters  seriously  upon  literary  work.  That 
problem  has  to  do  with  the  piirposes  of  such  an  under- 
taking. 

Purposes  shape  one's  conduct  in  literature  no  less 
than  in  war,  love,  and  politics.  Whether  the  author 
knows  it  or  not,  every  plot  he  invents  and  every  turn 
he  gives  to  its  telling  are  quahfied  by  the  use  he  hopes  to 
make  of  the  finished  product.  It  matters  not  whether 
he  writes  according  to  some  editor's  order  or  to  establish 
a  creed  or  simply  to  delight  himself;  the  influence  of  the 
aim  is  ever  present,  subtle  and  pervasive.  So  deep  is  it 
that  many  a  story  theme  takes  on  a  very  different  form 
with  each  new  purpose  of  the  writer's.  Again,  some 
themes  and  modes  of  treatment  are  wonderfully  adapted 
to  certain  ends  and  impossible  for  others.  Thus,  the 
severe  and  swift  art  of  which  Maupassant  was  so  fond 
is  peculiarly  the  weapon  of  a  writer  who  is  more  interested 
in  conveying  an  impression  than  in  interpreting  human 

1 


2  SnOax. STORY  WRITING 

nature  or  affairs.  Other  technical  devices  have  their 
own  exclusive  utility,  which  we  shall  inspect  in  other 
chapters.  Hardly  any  material  of  fiction  or  any  narra- 
tive principle  can  be  employed  without  regard  to"  the  aim 
of  the  particular  piece  of  writing  attempted. 

If  this  is  true,  it  must  be  evident  that  whoever  writes 
fiction  aimlessly,  never  surveying  the  various  advantages 
of  the  work  nor  choosing  one  advantage  as  the  end  to  be 
sought,  foredooms  himself  to  much  grief.  He  may  win 
out,  in  the  long  run;  but  his  victory  will  be  dearly  won. 
He  will  probably  spend  years  writing  for  the  public 
stories  which  please  only  himself,  and  he  may  wreck  his 
natural  style  by  trying  to  make  it  serve  an  end  which  it 
cannot  attain.  This  becomes  clear  the  moment  we 
consider  the  legitimate  purposes  of  WTiting  fiction. 

2.  The  four  ends  of  writing  fiction.  There  are  four 
obvious  rational  desires  which  might,  singly  or  collectively, 
urge  a  man  to  compose  a  story.  First,  he  might  wish  for 
the  private  gratification  of  expressing  his  own  fancies. 
Secondly,  he  might  hope  to  acquire,  through  practice,  an 
intimate  knowledge  of  literary  values  which  would 
heighten  his  appreciation  of  books  and  men.  In  the 
third  place,  he  might  seek  a  livelihood  by  entertaining 
a  large  circle  of  readers.  Or,  finally,  he  might  aspire  to 
expose  some  sham,  to  crush  some  public  infamy,  to  raise 
some  all  but  forgotten  ideal,  or  otherwise  to  better  the 
world.  Private  pleasure,  self-culture,  profit,  and  social 
service;  these  are  the  prospects  which  may  allure.  And 
now  a  word  about  each. 

a.  Writing  for  -pleasure.  People  differ  astonishingly  in 
the  immediate  satisfaction  they  gain  from  imagina  ive 
writing.  Many  who  are  gifted  compose  without  joy  or 
even  with  antipathy;  and  many  who  are  not  sweep  into 
raptures  at  every  inconsequential  motion  of  their  mediocre 
wits.     It  is  important  to  observe  this  fact  here,  because 


INTRODUCTION  3 

of  the  prevalent  instinctive  superstition  that  whoever 
has  a  strong  impulse  to  write  and  finds  much  pleasure  in 
yielding  to  it  is  endowed  with  those  talents  which  pub- 
lishers are  eager  to  engage.  That  this  is  a  superstition 
and  nothing  more,  every  experienced  writer  and  critic 
knows.  There  is  only  the  most  tenuous  connection  be- 
tween the  market  value  of  a  tale  and  the  fun  one  gets 
from  producing  it. 

Consider  two  opposite  modern  instances,  Edna  Ferber 
and  Gellet  Burgess.  If  newspaper  interviews  are  to  be 
trusted.  Miss  Ferber  drags  herself  gloomily  to  her  faithful 
typewriter,  for  the  composing  of  an  Emma  McChesney 
story.  Nevertheless,  her  output  is  the  very  highest  grade 
of  ephemeral  writing,  immensely  popular  and  correspond- 
ingly profitable.  How  different  Burgess  and  his  Lady 
Mechante!  In  the  confessional  introduction  to  this  weird 
volume,  he  admits  that  he  is  out  for  a  lark  and  that  he  is 
having  a  glorious  time  compiling  these  Precious  Episodes 
in  the  Life  of  a  Naughty  Nonpareille,  You  can  fairly 
hear  him  chuckling  behind  every  sentence.  But  what 
is  the  material  outcome  of  this  hilarity?  *  Helter-skelter 
rigmarole,^  Burgess  calls  the  book;  and  nobody  will 
challenge  the  opinion.  It  reeks  with  jests  comprehensible 
only  to  the  few  who  happen  to  have  thought  about  some 
things  precisely  as  the  author  has.  Its  satire  is  such  as 
can  be  sensed  from  only  one  point  of  view,  and  this 
point  of  view  cannot  be  attained  save  by  following  Burgess 
through  life  and  seeing  the  world  through  Burgess'  eyes. 
If  you  have  done  this,  you  may  scream  over  some  chapters 
of  Lady  Mechante.  If  you  haven't,  you  will  fling  the 
book  into  the  waste  basket  before  you  have  finished  the 
first  page. 

Now,  the  moral  of  this  contrast  is  clear.  Story  writing 
may  serve  as  a  merely  private  entertainment,  almost  as 
private  as  the  child's  game  of  making  faces  at  himself  in  a 


4  SHORT  STORY   WRITING 

mirror.  If  you  write  only  for  this  purpose,  do  not  expect 
the  world  to  enjoy  your  inventions.  Probably  it  will 
not;  and  the  chances  of  its  doing  so  dwindle  in  the  same 
measure  that  your  personal  experiences,  temperament, 
and  interests  deviate  from  those  of  the  ordinary  man. 
Whether  it  is  worth  while  to  write  stories  that  no  public 
will  read  is  a  question  which  each  man  must  answer  for 
himself.  It  lies  beyond  the  jurisdiction  of  critic  and 
editor.  That  not  a  few  persons  do  write — and  write 
well— in  secret,  neither  hoping  nor  wishing  to  reach  a 
public,  is  pretty  certain.  I  know  two  such  authors  in 
New  York  City;  they  have  produced  stories  worthy  of  the 
best  magazines,  but  they  will  not  sell  them.  They  write 
tales  as  they  play  the  piano,  'just  for  fun.'  Being  rich, 
they  are  not  tempted  by  the  market's  rewards.  Being 
cultured,  the  alleged  fame  of  the  fictionist  does  not  dazzle 
them.  And  I  doubt  not  that  there  are  many  otheis  like 
them. 

b.  Writing  for  self-culture.  I  suppose  nooody  save  a 
handful  of  literary  critics  deliberately  writes  fiction  in 
order  to  acquire  fresh  insight  into  the  thoughts  of  great 
writers,  their  style,  and  the  technique  of  the  art.  In  our 
schools  and  colleges  almost  every  other  literary  form  is 
extensively  practiced,  but  especially  by  the  essay.  Stu- 
dents are  requested  to  write  essays  and  essays:  essays  on 
Burke,  essays  on  In  Memoriam,  essays  on  The  Right  and 
The  Wrong,  essays  on  Wagner's  Idtmotive,  essays  on  Kip- 
ling's Things  as  They  Are,  and  Heaven  knows  what  else. 
Now,  I  doubt  whether  such  a  program  cultivates  self- 
expression  and  critical  sensitivity  as  well  as  half  the 
amount  of  drill  in  imaginative  narrative  would.  It  is 
notorious  that  the  essay  is  one  of  the  most  difficult  of  all 
enterprises  with  the  pen;  some  would  say  the  stubbornest. 
There  are  more  excellent  fictionists  than  moderately 
competent  essayists,  and  over  against  every  five  master 


,   INTRODUCTION  5 

novelists  stands  not  more  than  one  master  of  the  essay. 
This  is  no  accident;  it  is  due  chiefly  to  the  intrinsic  reaUsm 
and  philosophical  bias^f  the  essay.  Xbi_f^b£^^  ^^  every 
essay  must  be  fact,  ^ts  author  must  have  something  to^ 
say  about  some  state  of  affairs  in  the  world.  He  may  have 
misunderstood  these  affairs,  or  he  may  be  grossly  preju- 
diced toward  them,  or  he  may  perceive  them  in  a  com- 
monplace way;  but  he  cannot  write  effectively  unless  he 
holds  a  clear  opinion  about  them  and  can  defend  it  with 
arguments.  This  is  an  inflexible  rule,  applying  not  only 
to  the  smooth  solemnities  of  a  Macaulay  but  also  to 
the  genial  essay,  which  Dr.  Crothers  has  lately  revived 
with  such  success.  Even  in  its  most  whimsical  flights, 
the  essayist's  pen  is  ever  pressing  hard  against  Circum- 
stance. It  is  Circumstance  and  nothing  else  that  provokes 
him  to  write,  and  it  is  about  Circumstance  that  he  speaks. 
The  unfitness  of  essay  writing  as  a  means  to  acquiring 
skill  in  self-expression  now  appears.  No  man  can  write 
well  on  matters  about  which  he  has  no  sharp  opinion. 
Hence  it  is  that  the  essay  is  exclusively  the  instrument  of  a 
mature  mind  (mature  at  least  with  respect  to  the  particular 
subject  matter) .  But  the  imdergraduate — and  the  learner 
generally — is  not  mature.  He  studies  composition  to 
attain  maturity. '  And  his  embarrassment  as  an  essayist  is 
mightily  aggravated  by  the  fact  that  it  is  much  harder 
to  discourse  lucidly  on  things  today  than  in  earlier 
generations.  The  world  about  which  he  must  say  some- 
thing is  immeasurably  more  complicated  and  vaster 
than  the  toy  cosmos  which  Addison  and  Lamb  knew. 
Things  are  now  hopelessly  entangled  with  one  another. 
One  could  scarcely  discourse  on  Roast  Pig  at  this  hour, 
without  commenting  learnedly  upon  carbohydrates, 
trichinosis,  and  the  Meat  Trust.  Worse  yet,  the  old 
ideals  of  life  are  all  under  suspicion,  and  the  new  are  as 
vague  as  images  on  ruffled  water;  so  that  the  young 


6  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

writer  has  no  philosophy,  no  point  of  view — or  else — 
worse  luck! — ^he  has  one  shamelessly  stolen  from  an- 
tiquity and  badly  damaged  in  transit. 

In  view  of  all  this,  the  learner  would  advance  much 
more  swiftly,  were  he  to  describe  only  those  affairs  and 
people  which  he  knows  absolutely.  In  doing  that,  he 
would  at  least  begin  at  the  right  place.  But  with  what 
is  he  so  marvelously  intimate?  Only  with  events  which 
he  has  witnessed  or  conjured  up  in  his  ot\ti  imagination. 
Only  with  the  appearance  and  flow  of  them,  be  it  added, 
and  not  with  their  import.  Let  him  describe  them  as  he 
witnesses  them,  interpreting  them  not  at  all.  Let  him 
report,  but  not  explain.     Then  he  will  be  at  his  best.^ 

I  shall  venture  to  say,  then,  that,  from  the  points  of 
view  of  educator  and  learner,  this,  the  most  neglected 
purpose,  is  the  most  important  one.  Writing  fiction 
for  the  sake  of  the  skill  and  the  knowledge  it  brmgs 
would  probably  improve  almost  every  educated  man  and 

lit  is  idle  to  urge,  against  this  opinion,  that  college  fiction  is 
immature.  This  oft-repeated  censure  is  usually  founded  upon 
two  unfair  comparisons;  first,  the  comparison  of  undergraduate 
works  with  those  of  veteran  authors;  and,  secondly,  a  comparison 
of  what  the  undergraduate  has  to  say  with  what  he  has  learned. 
The  former  contrast  is  fooHsh.  The  latter  rests  upon  the 
mistaken  assumption  that  the  quantity  of  a  person's  information 
is  a  just  measure  of  the  number  and  vigor  of  the  opinions  he  ought 
to  have.  So  far  is  this  notion  removed  from  the  truth  that  the 
opposite  is  often  correct:  the  greater  the  mass  of  facts  that  are 
being  crammed  into  one's  head,  the  fewer  one's  thoughts,  during 
the  cramming.  Undergraduate  essays  ought  to  be  inferior,  on 
the  whole.  As  for  fiction,  the  equitable  critic  will  set  the  learner's 
narratives  over  against  his  essays.  And  he  will  discover  the  con- 
spicuous superiority  of  the  former.  In  freshness,  ease,  sincerity 
and  finish,  the  stories  appearing  in  the  undergraduate  magazines 
of  the  leading  American  colleges  assuredly  outrank  the  essays. 
This  becomes  doubly  significant  when  we  recall  that  their  authors 
have  been  drilled  in  the  composing  of  essays,  but  little  or  not  at  all 
in  story  writing. 


INTRODUCTION  7 

woman.  It  would  give  new  insight  into  literary  structure. 
This,  to  be  sure,  is  the  least  of  its  benefits;  but  it  is  not 
to  be  despised.  To  read  a  novel  with  new  eyes;  to  per- 
ceive in  a  story  something  more  than  off-hand  chatter, — 
surely  this  power  is  worth  many  times  the  efforts  its 
acquisition  will  cost.  But  the  advantage  does  not  end 
here.  With  it  come  a  quickened  sense  of  artistic  values, 
a  more  supple  style,  and  an  enlivening  of  the  imagination. 
This  last  is,  by  all  odds,  the  supreme  gain.  Imagination 
is  the  first  and  indispensable  activity  of  thought,  be  it 
scientific  or  practical  or  artistic.  While  it  lacks  the  dig- 
nity which  the  reasoning  power  enjoys  in  common  repute, 
it  really  stands  not  a  degree  below  the  latter.  In  the 
affairs  of  life  it  stands  one  in  good  stead  more  frequently 
than  the  sterner  intellectual  skill  does.  Assign  to  almost 
any  task  requiring  thought  an  imaginative  man  with  scant 
logic  and  an  unimaginative  logician;  nine  times  out  of  ten 
the  former  will  handle  it  more  successfully.  And  any 
psychologist  can  tell  you  why.  Would  it  not  seem  wise 
then  to  train  young  men  and  women  in  the  exercise  of 
fancy? 

Against  this  suggestion  arises  the  cry  that  such  a  course 
leads  to  frivolity  and  flightiness.  Matter-of-fact  folks 
will  assure  you  that  people  are  full  enough  of  fancies,  with- 
out any  encouragement  from  academic  authorities.  They 
will  prove  that  only  demonstrated  truths  enter  into  a 
soimd  education.  But  both  of  these  propositions  are 
fatally  wrong.  The  first  rests  upon  a  subtle  equivoca- 
tion in  the  word  'fancy',  which  is  identified  with  'imagi- 
nation' and  then  lends  its  invidious  connotation  to  the 
latter  term.  In  this  sense,  'imagining'  comes  to  mean 
idle  dreaming  or,  worse  yet,  wild  belief.  Now,  beyond 
doubt,  there  is  altogether  too  much  of  that  abroad.  But 
it  is  not  genuine  imagining.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  unimag- 
inativeness.     Sometimes    we    call    it    stupidity.    Some- 


8  SHORT   STORY   WRITING 

times  it  is  superstition.  Sometimes  it  is  gullibility. 
Sometimes  it  is  'the  artistic  temperament'.  But  always 
it  is  one  and  only  one  thing  at  bottom ;  to  wit,  the  absence 
of  quick,  variegated,  appropriate,  connected  imagery. 
The  man  in  whom  such  imagery  wells  up  richly  is  the 
sane  man,  the  well-balanced  thinker.  It  supplies  him 
with  doubts,  cautions,  and  leads.  And  these  are  the  very 
things  which  the  unbalanced  thinker  and  the  'artistic 
temperament '   lack. 

In  one  of  the  soundest  of  his  queer  essays  Chesterton 
makes  an  observation  which  bears  upon  this  matter. 

The  artistic  temperament  is  a  disease  that  afflicts 
amateurs.  It  is  a  disease  which  arises  from  men  not 
having  sufficient  power  of  expression  to  utter  and  get  rid 
of  the  element  of  art  in  their  being.  It  is  healthful  to 
every  sane  man  to  utter  the  art  within  him ;  it  is  essential 
to  every  sane  man  to  get  rid  of  the  art  within  him  at  all 
costs.  Artists  of  a  large  and  wholesome  vitality  get  rid 
of  their  art  easily,  as  they  breathe  easily  or  perspire  easily. 
But  in  artists  of  less  force  the  thing  becomes  a  pressure, 
and  produces  a  definite  pain,  which  is  called  the  artistic 
temperament.  Thus,  very  great  artists  are  able  to  be 
ordinary  men — men  like  Shakespeare  or  Browning.  .  .  . 

It  need  hardly  be  said  that  this  is  the  real  explanation 
of  the  thing  which  has  puzzled  so  many  dilettante  critics, 
the  problem  of  the  extreme  ordinariness  of  the  behavior 
of  so  many  great  geniuses.  .  .  .  Their  behavior  was  so 
ordinary  that  it  was  not  recorded.  .  .  .  The  modern 
artistic  temperament  cannot  understand  how  a  man  who 
could  write  such  lyrics  as  Shakespeare  wrote  could  be  as 
keen  as  Shakespeare  was  on  business  transactions  in  a 
little  town  in  Warwickshire.^ 

How  is  it  that  amateurs  lack  this  power  to  express  the 
art  that  is  in  them?  Have  they  no  ideas?  Indeed,  the}'- 
have  them  aplenty;  they  can  state  them  readily  as  pure 
propositions,  but  not  in  full  artistic  narrative.     Are  they 

*  Heretics.    Essay  on  the  Wit  of  Whistler. 


INTRODUCTION  9 

ignorant  of  words?  Rarely.  Can  they  not  reason?  Well 
enough  for  the  purposes  of  art.  Where  then  can  their 
difficulty  lie,  if  not  in  the  paucity  or  sluggishness  of  their 
imagination?  It  must  be  that  they  sit  hour  after  hour, 
waiting  for  the  right  word  to  pop  up,  as  poor  Flaubert 
did.  And  to  catch  up  the  loose  threads  of  a  plot,  they 
have  to  weave  and  unravel  almost  as  long  as  Penelope  dido 

The  very  same  thing  might  be  said  of  the  superstitious 
man,  the  mystic  and  the  dupe.  It  is  the  unimaginative 
savage  who  confuses  his  dreams  with  realities.  It  is  the 
dull  Bedouin  who  thinks  the  stalking  pillar  of  sand  that 
marches  in  the  desert  whirlwind  is  a  living  jinn.  And 
it  is  the  thick-witted  peasant  who  believes  in  ghosts  and 
patriotism  and  politician's  promises.  In  the  arsenal  of 
such  minds  there  is  neither  powder  nor  shot  with  which  to 
combat  any  idea.  They  cannot  see  why  the  dead  may  not 
return  in  dreams,  or  why  a  thing  that  moves  without  visi- 
ble impetus  is  not  alive,  or  why  an  alderman  who  gives 
Christmas  turkeys  to  the  poor  and  takes  off  his  hat  to 
the  Stars  and  Stripes  is  not  a  high-minded  statesman. 

This  defect  is,  in  large  measure,  an  evil  endowment. 
So  too  is  a  copious  fancy  a  gift  from  some  good  fairy. 
Nevertheless,  deliberate  training  can  improve  the  weaker 
and  release  fresh  energies  of  the  stronger  imagination. 
This  is  why  the  writing  of  fiction  for  self-culture  is  the 
most  important  of  the  four  purposes  we  are  here  discuss- 
ing. 

c.  Writing  for  profit.  This  is  the  commonest,  the  most 
obvious,  and  the  most  speculative  of  the  four  aims. 
Unlike  the  two  purposes  just  considered,  it  imposes  a 
variety  of  restrictions  which  some  authors  find  exceedingly 
irksome  and  others  do  not.  These  restrictions  are  vital 
to  commercial  success  and  difficult  to  define.  iMany 
experienced  editors  are  unable  to  phrase  them  intelligibly. 
The  writer  who  senses  them  and  reckons  with  them  sue- 


10  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

cessfully  will  make  money,  which  is  a  desirable  thing. 
But,  if  he  remains  blind  to  them,  nothing  short  of  genius 
will  save  him.  What  the  restrictions  are  will  be  later  dis- 
cussed. At  present  I  wish  only  to  insist  upon  the  much 
challenged  fact  that  writing  for  profit  is  a  distinct  ideal, 
not  at  all  incidental  to  some  other  supposedly  finer 
one.  It  sets  its  own  course  and  encounters  its  own 
problems. 

d.  Writing  for  social  service.  Concerning  the  pro- 
priety of  this  aim  artists  differ  irreconcilably.  Some  of 
them  insist  that  the  only  legitimate  aim  of  painting  or 
singing  or  writing  is  to  delight  somebody.  Others  say 
that  the  highest  art  is  glorified  preaching,  and  that  the 
beauties  of  it  are  only  means  to  the  finer  moral  end. 
This  latter  position  has  been  brilliantly  defended  by  the 
versatile  Chesterton,  whom  we  may  again  quote. 

Now  of  all,  or  nearly  all,  the  able  modern  writers  whom 
I  have  briefly  studied  in  this  book  this  is  especially  and 
pleasingly  true,  that  they  do  each  of  them  have  a  con- 
structive and  affirmative  view,  and  that  they  do  take  it 
seriously  and  ask  us  to  take  it  seriously.  ...  In 
the  fin  de  siecle  atmosphere  every  one  was  crying  out 
that  literature  should  be  free  from  all  causes  and  ethical 
creeds.  Art  was  to  produce  only  exquisite  workman- 
ship, and  it  was  especially  the  note  of  those  days  to  de- 
mand brilliant  plays  and  brilliant  short  stories.  And 
when  they  got  them,  they  got  them  from  a  couple  of 
moralists.  The  best  short  stories  were  written  by  a  man 
trying  to  preach  Imperialism.  The  best  plays  were 
written  by  a  man  trying  to  preach  Socialism.  All  the 
art  of  the  artists  looked  tiny  and  tedious  beside  the  art 
which  was  a  by-product  of  propaganda. 

The  reason,  indeed,  is  very  simple.  A  man  canriot 
be  wise  enough  to  be  a  great  artist  without  being  wise 
enough  to  wish  to  be  a  philosopher.  A  man  cannot  have 
the  energy  to  produce  good  art  without  having  the 
energy  to  wish  to  pass  beyond  it When  we 


INTRODUCTION  11 

*want  any  art  tolerably  brisk  and  bold,  we  have  to  go  to 
the  doctrinaires.^ 

This  is  a  happy  exaggeration,  which  Chesterton  would 
have  some  trouble  in  defending.  Not  every  'tolerably 
brisk  and  bold'  work  of  art  has  come  from  a  doctrinaire. 
Macbeth  is  surely  as  'brisk  and  bold'  as  any  of  Mr.  Shaw's 
polemical  plays;  but  Shakespeare  never  tried  to  preach. 
Indeed,  Tolstoi,  Shaw,  and  others  would  have  us  believe 
that  he  never  had  an  idea  of  his  own,  nor  so  much  as  a 
genuine,  gripping  conviction  on  any  subject  whatever. 
And  all  of  Professor  Moulton's  ingenious  attempts  to 
discover  in  his  plays  a  complete  and  lofty  philosophy  are 
but  so  much  straw  against  the  fire  of  Tolstoi's  attack. 
Again,  Poe's  tales  certainly  ward  off  slumber  as  well  as 
Chesterton's  stories  about  Father  Brown;  yet  Poe  had  no 
propaganda,  and  precious  little  moral  earnestness.  And 
so  we  might  prolong  the  list  of  glittering  exceptions. 

Nevertheless,  the  greater  truth  is  on  Chesterton's 
side.  More  than  ever  before,  fiction  today  is  the  moralist's 
weapon.  More  than  ever  before,  preachers  of  every 
stripe,  from  Kipling  to  Henry  Van  Dyke,  use  it  success- 
fully. And  this  advance  is  due  in  no  slight  degree  to  the 
clearing  up  of  fictional  technique  since  Poe  and  Mau- 
passant. It  is  not  so  very  long  ago  that  didactic  novels 
and  stories  were  insufferable.  The  moral  sat  behind 
you  and  whispered  noisily  into  your  ear,  while  you  strove 
to  follow  the  players  and  the  play.  This  was  quite  the 
style  in  eighteenth-century  writings,  especially  the  French; 
and  it  was  taken  up  by  Maria  Edgeworth,  in  whose 
hands  it  became  ludicrous.  As  late  as  1880,  American 
magazines  were  still  publishing  stuff  rankly  reminiscent 
of  that  manner.     But  now  it  survives  nowhere  in  literar 

^Heretics,    288,  etc. 


j2  short  story  writing 

ture;  to  find  it  you  must  turn  to  Sunday  School  weeklies 
and  the  Ladies^  Home  Journal.  Writers  have  outgrown 
it,  and  so  has  the  cultured  public.  Curiously  enough, 
though,  its  disappearance  has  not  decreased  the  preacher's 
opportunities.  Rather  has  it  widened  them.  It  has 
done  so,  however,  by  increasing  the  technical  difficul- 
ties. No  longer  may  he  insert  a  moral  disquisition  in 
the  midst  of  a  love  scene.  He  must  write  straight 
drama,  weaving  his  thesis  into  it  so  deftly  that  he  in- 
seminates your  mind  without  your  knowing  it.  If  he 
cannot  accomplish  this,  he  fails  altogether.  But  if  he 
can,  even  imperfectly,  his  influence  will  exceed  by  a 
hundred-fold  that  of  the  old-school  author-preacher. 

No,  the  preacher's  opportunities  have  not  lessened. 
But  the  number  of  preachers  who  can  seize  them  has. 
Many  a  high  school  graduate  of  the  rising  generation 
could  grind  out  stories  of  the  Maria  Edgeworth  stamp, 
but  only  a  skilled  and  facile  mind  could  produce  a  fiction- 
sermon  which  a  good  modern  magazine  would  publish. 
And  this  brings  us  to  a  moral  which  will  soon  be  dinned 
tediously  into  the  learner's  ears:  if  your  purpose  in  writing 
fiction  is  this  one,  you  must  master  the  art.  For  the  didac- 
tic story,  more  than  any  other,  must  sustain  its  dramatic 
interests  perfectly.  Ordinary  art  conceals  itself;  but  the 
sermon-story  must  hide  not  only  its  art  but  also  its  moral. 
It  calls  for  double  magic. 

3.  The  relative  difficulty  of  these  aims.  The  order  in 
which  we  have  discussed  these  four  purposes  is  the  order 
of  their  ease.  To  write  merely  for  one's  own  pleasure  is 
very  simple.  You  may  give  yourself  free  rein.  No 
style  is  too  exotic,  no  character  too  weird,  no  plot  too 
improbable,  no  theme  too  abstruse  or  too  trivial  to  em- 
ploy, if  you  like  it.  Many  become  impossible,  however, 
as  soon  as  you  set  out  to  write  for  self-culture.  A  thor- 
ough knowledge  of  good  art  is  not  to  be  achieved  unless 


INTRODUCTION  13 

you  master  its  practices.  Like  the  mastery  of  painting  or 
music,  it  involves  many  little  drudgeries,  not  the  least 
irritating  of  which  is  the  dissecting  of  famous  techniques. 
When  he  becomes  a  professional  story  teller,  the  author's 
trials  increase  again.  He  must  hold  aloof  from  many  fas- 
cinating themes  and  eschew  styles,  turns,  and  effects  dear 
to  an  artist  and  trained  critic  but  invisible  or  abhorrent  to 
the  multitude.  Also  he  must  shape  his  program  with  an 
eye  to  what  other  authors  are  doing  and  what  the  wide 
world  is  talking  about.  For  instance,  at  the  present 
moment,  some  editors  are  casting  about  eagerly  for  good 
stories  that  have  to  do  with  woman's  suffrage;  while  others 
seek  comedies  and  tragedies  of  the  High  Cost  of  Living.  A 
fair  piece  of  work  on  one  of  these  themes  will,  by  virtue  of 
its  timeliness,  be  preferred  above  a  much  finer  story  about 
the  men  and  griefs  of  yesterday.  Hence  the  professional 
author  must  write  with  his  ear  to  the  ground — which  is 
an  awkward  position  and  not  always  dignified.  It  is 
neither  dishonorable  nor  debasing;  at  worst,  it  calls  for  the 
shrewdness  of  a  shopkeeper  and  for  a  limber  mind.  Most 
difficult  of  all  is  the  didactic  aim.  Why  it  is  has  been 
indicated  at  the  close  of  Section  2  and  will  be  demonstrated 
elsewhere. 

And  now  let  the  opening  question  be  repeated.  Why 
write  fiction?  Well,  the  answer  rests  with  you;  but  you 
must  choose  from  among  these  four  purposes.  And 
you  must  bear  in  mind,  from  first  to  last,  that  each  of 
them  sets  up  a  distinct  enterprise  whose  standards, 
methods,  and  limitations  must  be  studied  apart  from 
those  of  the  other  three.  Also  you  must  know  that, 
while  the  enterprises  are  not  incompatible,  success  in 
one  does  not  necessarily  entail  success  in  another. 

4.  Shall  it  he  the  novel  or  the  short  story  f  Suppose  you 
have  resolved  to  write  fiction.  The  question  then  arises: 
which  of  the  two  leading  prose  forms  shall  you  employ? 


14  SHORT   STORY   WRITING 

(For  reasons  soon  to  be  sho^Ti,  we  need  not  consider  the 
minor  forms,  such  as  the  novelette,  the  tale,  the  fable, 
etc.)  Now,  the  answer  can  be  deduced  from  the  purpose 
you  have  chosen. 

a.  //  you  write  for  pleasure,  choose  whichever  form  you 

like. 

b.  //  you  write  for  self-culture,  choose  the  short  story. 

c.  //  you  write  for  profit,  choose  the  short  story,  at  least 
until  your  skill  and  reputation  are  established. 

d.  If  ijou  write  for  reform,  choose  only  the  novel. 

a.  This  rule  is  perfectly  obvious. 

b.  For  the  writer  desiring  to  understand  literary  values 
intimately,  the  short  story  affords  opportunities  vastly 
richer  than  those  of  the  novel.  And  the  reasons  are 
three:  (1)  The  student  can  experiment  more  rapidly 
with  the  short  story,  because  of  its  brevity.  He  can 
write  twenty  stories  in  the  time  required  for  one  novel. 
This  repetition  of  the  entire  technique  hastens  learning. 
(2)  The  short  story  contains  every  artistic  device  em- 
ployed in  the  novel,  except  high  comphcation  (such  as 
sub-plots).  Hence,  in  mastering  story  technique,  the 
student  masters  the  virtues  of  the  novel.  (3)  The  finer 
types  of  story  demand  many  artistic  qualities  which  the 
novel  does  not.  These  qualities  derive  chiefly  from  the 
formal  restrictions  that  are  placed  upon  the  theme,  the 
length,  and  the  intricacy  of  the  story.  Brander  Matthews 
has  pointed  out  some  requirements  and  effects  peculiar 
to  the  highest,  most  difficult  of  short  story  forms,  namely 
the  pure  dramatic  story.  What  he  has  to  say  about  them 
holds  of  the  commoner  story  forms  much  less  rigorously, 
but  broadly  enough  to  illustrate  our  present  point. 

First,  as  to  the  theme: 

"  The  Short-story,  far  more  than  the  Novel  even,  de- 
mands a  subject.  The  Short-story  is  nothing  if  there  is 
no  story  to  tell; — one  might  almost  say  that  a  Short- 


INTRODUCTION  15 

story  is  nothing  if  it  has  no  plot, —  except  that  "plot" 
may  suggest  to  some  readers  a  complication  and  an 
elaboration  which  are  not  really  needful. 

Second,  as  to  the  structure: 

The  Short-story  fulfils  the  three  false  unities  of  the 
French  classic  drama:  it  shows  one  action,  in  one  place,  on 
one  day.  A  Short-story  deals  with  a  single  character,  a 
single  event,  a  single  emotion  or  the  series  of  emotions 
called  forth  by  a  single  situation. 

Third,  as  to  the  artistic  skill  required: 

No  one  has  ever  succeeded  as  a  writer  of  Short-stories 
who  had  not  ingenuity,  originality,  and  compression; 
and  most  of  those  who  have  succeeded  in  this  line  had 
also  the  touch  of  fantasy.  But  there  are  not  a  few 
successful  novelists  lacking,  not  only  in  fantasy  and  com- 
pression, but  also  in  ingenuity  and  originality;  they  had 
other  qualities,  no  doubt,  but  these  they  had  not.  If  an 
example  must  be  given,  the  name  of  Anthony  Trollope 
will  occur  to  all.  Fantasy  was  a  thing  he  abhorred; 
compression  he  knew  not;  and  originality  and  ingenuity 
can  be  conceded  to  him  only  by  a  strong  stretch  of  the 
ordinary  meaning  of  the  words.  Other  qualities  he  had 
in  plenty,  but  not  these.  And,  not  having  them,  h« 
was  not  a  writer  of  Short-stories.  Judging  from  his 
essay  on  Hawthorne,  one  may  even  go  so  far  as  to  say 
that  Trollope  did  not  know  a  good  Short-story  when  he 
saw  it.^ 

The  short  story  is  indeed  'a  high  and  difficult  depart- 
ment of  fiction.'  And,  as  Canby  says,  'In  its  capacity 
for  perfection  of  structure,  for  nice  discrimination  in  means 
and  for  a  satisfying  exposition  of  the  full  power  of  words, 
it  is  much  superior  to  the  novel,  and  can  rank  only  below 
the  poem.'  It  will  teach  the  student  much  more  than 
the  novel  can  about  the  deep  virtues  of  restraint,  clarity, 
directness    and    action.      Indeed,    it   has   come   to   be 

*  The  Philosophy  of  the  Short-story,  32,  16,  23,  etc. 


{ 


16  SHORT  STORY   WRITING 

recognized  as  the  natural  approach  to  the  novehst's 
craft.  And  history  confirms  this  judgment,  for  nearly  all 
great  fictionists  since  the  mid-nmeteenth  century  have 
begun  as  story  writers. 

c.  The  short  story  can  be  turned  to  profit  much  more 
promptly  and  surely  than  the  novel.  A  person  who  can 
write  at  all  can  finish  a  score  of  stories  in  the  time  required 
for  one  novel,  and  the  chances  of  selling  half  of  the 
twenty  are  much  better  than  those  of  selling  the  novel. 
Furthermore,  the  stories  will  be  paid  for  upon  acceptance, 
or  soon  afterward;  whereas  the  returns  from  the  novel 
will  come  mostly  in  the  form  of  royalties  spread  over  a 
period  of  years.  Finally,  the  story  market  is  better  than 
the  novel  market.  Ten  mediocre  tales  will  yield  more 
than  one  fair  novel  (unless  the  latter  is  sold  first  to  a 
magazine  for  serial  publication).  And  five  good  stories 
will  pay  more  than  a  novel  of  fairly  high  merit  may  be 

expected  to.  ^'    -.       e 

d.  Brunetiere  has  laid  his  finger  upon  a  pecuharity  ol 
the  short  story  which  unfits  it  for  sermonizing.     He  says 
—and  correctly— that  it  does  not  deal  with  social  prob- 
lems.    Its  canvas  is  too  small;  or,  to  change  the  figure, 
it  moves  so  rapidly  that  it  touches  only  the  high  spots. 
But  every  problem  worth  preaching  about  must  sound 
the  deeps.     It  is  a  problem  because  there  are  two  or  more 
sides  to  it,  because  it  demands  hard  thinking,  and  because 
many  people  have  not  thought  it  out.    Now  the  author 
who  wishes  to  persuade  his  readers,  say,  that  socialism 
is  the  wisest  course,  or  that  divorce  should  be  unrestricted, 
must   develop   his   entire   argument   in   dramatic   form. 
But  for  this  the  short  story  has  no  space.    At  best,  it 
can  give  a  picture  which  will  suggest  the  author's  view. 
Van  Dyke's  recent  Half-Told   Tale  entitled  Stronghold' 
does  this  very  prettily.     It  deals  with  the  most  intricate 
1  iScri&ner's,  April,  1912. 


WHAT  IS  A  SHORT  STORY?  17 

and  obscure  of  questions,  the  question  as  to  the  wisdom 
of  social  violence.  It  moves  you,  it  rings  true,  yet 
it  does  not  quite  convince;  and  no  fiction  short  of  a  thick 
book  could,  having  that  problem  to  wrestle  with.  Just 
because  the  short  story  presents  no  more  than  one  little 
scene,  one  idea,  one  pro  or  contra,  it  is  an  ill  weapon  for 
a  man  with  a  mission,  which  calls  into  play  the  heavy 
artillery  of  argument  and  long-drawn-out  history. 

5.  The  purpose  of  this  hook.  Those  students  who  write 
for  culture  should  do  so  with  the  highest  ideals  of  fictional 
art  before  them;  and  those  who  write  for  profit  should 
know,  in  addition,  all  the  tricks  of  the  trade.  Therefore 
this  volume  falls  into  two  parts.  Its  first  and  more  im- 
portant aim  is  to  describe  the  perfect  story  and  the  devices 
for  attaining  perfection.  In  arraying  these  I  am  well 
aware  that  not  one  student  in  a  thousand  can  manage  all 
of  them.  Even  a  master  often  fails  with  some.  But 
they  are,  none  the  less,  the  ideals  and  guiding  principles. 
In  the  short  second  half  of  the  book  the  commercial  aspect 
of  authorship  is  considered.  There  we  shall  take  exception 
to  some  of  those  artistic  laws,  but  only  because  the  reading 
public  is  less  interested  in  perfect  art  than  in  simple  enter- 
tainment. In  recognizing  this  fact,  we  do  not  fall  into  any 
contradiction.  Nor  do  we  alter  the  ideals  of  fiction.  We 
only  admit  the  indisputable  fact  that  purposes  shape 
ideals,  and  that  the  purpose  of  the  artist  is  not  identical 
with  the  purpose  of  the  entertainer.  All  pure  art  is  enter- 
taining, but  not  all  entertaining  is  pure  art.  The  demands 
of  entertainment  are  broader  and  looser  than  those  of 
flawless  fiction. 


PART  I:  THE  ART 


CHAPTER  I— WHAT  IS  A  SHORT  STORY 

1.  The  double  ideal.  In  loose  popular  usage,  every 
story  that  is  short  is  a  short  story,  and  a  story  is  any  narra- 
tive. Allegory,  anecdote,  report  and  tale  are  regarded  as 
so  many  varieties  of  short  story.  But  among  artists  and 
critics  there  prevails  a  narrower  conception  which  is  amply 
justified  by  the  history  of  modern  fiction.  According  to 
them,  the  short  story  is  the  most  highly  specialized 
brand  of  narrative,  if  not  of  prose  generally.  Now, 
what  quahty  peculiarizes  it  so?     Its  double  ideal. 

The  short  story  ideal  is  a  fusion  of  two  artistic  ideals,  the 
one  American,  the  other  French.  Poe  best  expressed  the 
former,  and  Maupassant  the  latter.  The  American  ideal  is 
'The  Single  Effect.'  The  French  ideal  is  the  Dramatic  Effect. 
The  Short  Story  is  therefore  a  narrative^  drama  v 
with  a  single  effect. 

- — ^rWhmiM'm?ngle  effect  is.  In  his  essay  on  Hawthorne's 
tales,  Poe  points  out  that  the  'brief  tale'  is  not  a  work  of 
art  unless  it  produces  a  unified  impression  upon  the  reader. 

A  skilful  Hterary  artist  has  constructed  a  tale.  IfV 
wise,  he  has  not  fashioned  his  thoughts  to  accommodate  '^ 
his  incidents;  but  having  conceived,  with  deliberate 
care,  a  certain  unique  or  single  effect  to  be  wrought  out, 
he  then  invents  such  incidents — he  then  combines  such 
events  as  may  best  aid  him  in  establishing  this  precon- 
ceived  effect.  If  his  very  initial  sentence  tend  not  to  the 
out-bringing  of  this  effect,  then  he  has  failed  in  his  first 
step.  In  the  whole  composition  there  should  be  no  word 
written  of  which  the  tendency,  direct  or  indirect,  is  not 
to  the  one  pre-established  design.  As  by  such  means, 
with  such  care  and  skill,  a  picture  is  at  length  painted 

21 


22  SHORT  STORY   WRITING 

which  leaves  in  the  mind  of  him  who  contemplates  it 
with  a  kindred  art  a  sense  of  the  fullest  satisfaction.  The 
idea  of  the  tale  has  been  presented  unblemished,  because 
undisturbed;  and  this  is  an  end  unattainable  by  the 
novel.  Undue  brevity  is  just  as  exceptionable  here  as 
in  the  poem,  but  undue  length  is  yet  more  to  be  avoided,  i 

This   ideal   was   first   attained   by   Poe.     His   stories 
bear  Httle  or  no  resemblance  to  the  tales  of  earlier  writers. 
Compare,  if  you  will,   The  Fall  of  the  House  of  Usher 
with  any  of  the  stories  in  The  Arabian  Nights,  and  you 
will  instantly  discern  the  novelty  of  the  American  writer. 
Charming  the  tales  of  Scheherazade  are,  but  in  a  dif- 
ferent way.     Whatever  they  do,  they  do  not  produce  a 
single  emotional  effect.     Within  each  tale  the  reader  is 
transported,  as  on  the  magic  carpet  of  Prince  Houssain, 
from  grim  tragedy  to  farce,  from  farce  to  tedious  the- 
ological disquisitions  on  some  sura  of  the  Koran,  and 
thence  to  a  page  of  puns  or  something  else.     He  is  watch- 
ing literary  vaudeville,   and  the  spectacle  has  all  the 
merits  and  defects  of  the  theatrical  article.     This  variega- 
tion is,  of  course,  much  more  pronounced  in  medieval 
fiction  than  in  modern;  but  it  pervades  the  latter  down 
to  the  second  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century.     Before 
then,  it  is  only  in  rare  specimens  that  we  find  anything 
like  the  unity  of  impression  which  Poe  produces. 
/  Insofar  as  technique  is  concerned,  the  single  effect  j^ 
yf  /more  fundamental  than  "the  dramatic  effect.     It  detet-- 
/mines  much  more  profoundly  the  structure  of  the  short 
/    story.     Furthermore,  it  is,  one  might  say,  an  absolute 
1     ideal,  whereas  the  dramatic  is  relative  to  the  particular 
)    material  of  each  plot.     For  instance,  a  weak  dramatic 
(     quality  will  not  ruin  a  story,  provided  some  one  emotion 
I     or  some  one  idea  is  vividly  played  upon;  but,  conversely, 
\there  is  no  hope  for  a  story,  however  dramatic,  if  it  leaves 
^Graham's  Magazine,  May,  1835. 


WHAT  IS  A  SHORT  STORY?  23 

you  with  either  no  definite  imwession  at  all  or  else  with  |/ 
several  in  conflict  or  unrelated/ The  majority  of  current 
productions  well  illustrate  this  rule*.  Few  indeed  are  the 
strong  dramatic  stories,  but  there  are  many  others — 
mostly  character  sketches,  mystery  tales,  and  surprises — 
which  give  the  reader  something  to  laugh  at,  something 
to  cry  over,  something  to  rage  at,  or  something  to  think 
about.  In  short,  they  affect  him  in  a  distinct  and  single 
manner;  and  it  is  just  this  unity  of  impression  which  en- 
ables them  to  run  the  editorial  gantlet.  There  is  a  pretty 
clear  reason  for  this,  and  it  will  appear  slowly  in  the  course 
of  the  technical  analysis  upon  which  we  shall  soon  be 
launched. 

3.  What  dramatic  narrative  is.  The  second  constit- 
uent ideal,  the  French,  is  much  less  easily  defined.  The 
trouble  with  it  is  that  the  dramatic  quality  to  which 
it-  aspires  is  somewhat  nebulous.  An  over-simplified 
statement  of  it  appears  in  Matthews'  remark,  cited 
above,  that  the  short  story  fulfils  the  three  false  unities 
of  the  French  classic  drama:  "It  shows  one  action,  in 
one  place,  on  one  day.  A  Short  story  deals  with  a  single 
character,  a  single  event,  a  single  emotion,  or  the  series 
of  emotions  called  forth  by  a  single  situation."  Were 
we  to  take  this  literally,  we  should  find  scarcely  a  story 
even  approximating  the  standard.  Look,  for  instance, 
at  the  more  familiar  works  of  the  chief  exponent  of  the 
dramatic  story,  Maupassant.  The  Horla  has  two  char- 
acters dominant  and  two  emotions,  mystery  and  horror. 
There  is  no  one  event,  though  there  is  a  single  compHca- 
tion.  The  Necklace,  one  of  the  flawless  contes,  covers  a 
period  of  ten  years  and  depends  absolutely  upon  the  inter- 
play of  two  emotions,  false  pride  and  honor,  the  former 
controlling  the  wife  and  the  latter  the  husband.  In  like 
manner  Vain  Beauty  scorns  the  false  dramatic  unities; 
and  so  too  does  every  other  superior  conte  with  the  possible 


*24  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

exception  of  Moonlight,  and  A  Coward,  Were  we  to 
inspect  the  stories  of  other  authors,  we  should  find  a 
still  less  pious  observance  of  the  alleged  rule. 

Nevertheless,  nearly  all  story  writers  since  Poe  show 
unmistakable   signs   of   following  some   dramatic   ideal. 
And  the  most  conspicuous  evidence  of  this  is  that  their 
stories  have  plots.     Herein  they  differ  sharply  from  Poe's 
tales,  few  of  which  exhibit  more  than  a  shred  of  that  sort 
of  compHcation.     If,  now,  we  can  describe  the  essence 
of  a  plot,  we  shall  understand  the  ideal  of  drama.     This 
description  must  now  be  attempted. 
,       A  plot  is  a  climactic  series  of  events  each  of  which  both 
y  determines  and  is  determined  hy  the  characters  involved. 
The  student  will  please  observe  that  the  determination 
here  spoken  of  is  reciprocal.     This  fact  is  the  significant 
one.     If  the  determination  is  one-sided,  there  results  no 
plot,  in  the  strict  dramatic  sense. 

Thus,  suppose  the  events  shaped  the  destiny  of  the  char- 
acter but  were  not  themselves  directed  by  him;  the  hero 
would  then  be  little  more  than  the  passive  victim  of  cir- 
cumstances, and  the  story  would  take  on  the  loose  vesture 
of  flowing  adventure,  like  the  yams  of  Sinbad,  the  Sailor. 
Sinbad,  you  remember,  set  forth  on  his  first  voyage  to 
repair  his  squandered  fortunes.  This  initial  act  was  'in 
character',  for  it  was  specifically  determined  by  the  great 
traveler's  repentance  and  new  desires.  His  plight,  his 
bitter  thoughts  of  prodigalities  past,  and  his  resolve  to  lead 
a  saner  life  directly  precipitated  his  embarking.  Here 
then  is  genuine  drama.  But  there  is  no  more  of  it.  All 
that  befell  him  afterward  was  not  of  his  making.  It  was 
pure  chance  that  his  ship  came  upon  a  dead  calm  near  a 
•  pleasant  little  island,  and  that  he  went  ashore.  It  was 
pure  chance  that  the  island  turned  out  to  be  the  back  of  a 
leviathan,  and  that  the  monster  dove  to  the  bottom  of  the 
sea,  ere  his  visitors  regained  their  sloop.     It  was  pure 


WHAT  IS  A  SHORT   STORY?  25 

chance  that  Sinbad,  afloat  on  a  fragment  of  wreckage, 
was  driven  by  a  rising  gale  to  an  island,  and  that  the 
grooms  of  the  maharajah,  who  rescued  him,  were  still 
near  by,  pasturing  the  royal  stud.  And  so  forever  his 
haps  and  mishaps  ran  on,  beyond  the  control  of  his 
wishes  and  skill,  indifferent  to  his  virtues. 

Now,  a  skilful  writer  might  weave  such  adventures 
so  deftly  that  they  would  hang  together  like  a  well- 
fashioned  garment.  But  mere  coherence  would  not 
elevate  them  to  the  texture  of  a  drama.  At  best,  it 
could  only  achieve  that  other  virtue  of  the  story,  namely 
the  single  effect.  To  Poe  this  result  seemed  quite  enough. 
Indeed,  he  believed  it  constituted  a  plot.  In  his  essay 
on  American  drama  he  says: 

A  mere  succession  of  incidents,  even  the  most  spirited, 
will  no  more  constitute  a  plot  than  a  multiplication  of 
zeros,  even  the  most  infinite,  will  result  in  the  production 
of  a  unit.  This  all  will  admit — but  few  trouble  them- 
selves to  think  further.  The  common  notion  seems  to 
be  in  favor  of  mere  complexity;  but  a  plot,  properly  under- 
stood, is  perfect  only  inasmuch  as  we  shall  find  ourselves 
unable  to  detach  from  it  or  disarrange  any  single  incident 
involved,  without  destruction  to  the  mass.  This  we 
say  is  the  point  of  perfection — a  point  never  yet  attained, 
but  not  on  that  account  unattainable.  Practically, 
we  may  consider  a  plot  as  of  high  excellence  when  no  one 
of  its  component  parts  shall  be  susceptible  of  removal 
without  detriment  to  the  whole. 

NoWj  this  describes  a  feature  of  the  perfect  drama; 
but  the 'trouble  is  that  it  does  the  same  for  the  mystery 
story  like  The  Gold  Bug  and  for  the  well-constructed 
allegory  and,  in  general,  for  any  narrative  which  aims  to 
bring  out  one  idea  or  to  lead  up  to  one  important  scene. 
Indeed,  what  Poe  here  touches  is  not  the  natxire  of  a  plot 
but  a  virtue  of  well-knit  discourse.     His  remarks  apply 


15 


26  SHORT  STORY   WRITING 

perfectly  to  the  'plot'  of  a  geometrical  demonstration 
or  any  other  deductive  argument. 

Let  us  now  make  the  opposite  supposition;  namely, 
that  we  have  a  plot  when  we  have  fashioned  a  series  of 
events  that  grow  entirely  out  of  the  central  character. 
This  is  W.  D.  Howells'  belief.  About  it  we  may  ask 
several  questions.  First,  do  many  writers  accept  it  as  a 
dramatic  ideal?  Secondly,  do  they  hve  up  to  it  in  their 
own  writings?  Thirdly,  does  it  help  define  the  class  of 
existent  fiction  which  critics  recognize  to  be  short  stories? 
And,  if  not,  why  not? 

The  first  query  finds  an  affirmative  answer.  Mau- 
passant, Howells,  Henry  James,  Edith  Wharton  and 
many  others  strive  to  compose  stories  in  which  the 
heroes  and  heroines  make  everything  happen  out  of  their 
own  inner  natures.  But — touching  now  the  second 
question — these  authors  constantly  allow  their  char^ 
acters  to  be  moulded  by  circumstances.  Assuredly 
their  men  and  women  grow,  shift,  decay,  and  take  on 
new  forms  under  the  stress  of  chance.  If  they  are  selfish 
at  the  outset,  they  end  generously.  If  they  begin  honest, 
they  finish  as  hypocrites. 

In  Howells'  The  Magic  of  a  Voice,  for  example,  the  entire 
plot  turns  upon  Langboume's  lucky  discovery  of  the  circu- 
lar letter  and  the  still  luckier  presence  of  Barbara's  home 
address  on  the  envelope.  How  then  can  Howells  here  de- 
fend his  own  dictum  that  in  a  true  plot  "the  man  does  not 
result  from  the  things  he  does,  but  the  things  he  does  result 
from  the  man"?  It  might  be  said  that  Langboume's 
going  into  the  girl's  room  at  the  hotel  after  she  had  vacated 
it  grew  out  of  his  character;  and,  as  he  found  the  letter 
on  the  floor  of  the  room,  this  latter  event  sprang  from  his 
character.  But  this  reasoning  is  sophistical.  It  is  a 
variety  of  the  'fallacy  of  accident',  as  logicians  say. 
For  it  was  not  Langbourne's  wish  to  find  the  lost  article 


WHAT   IS  A  SHORT   STORY?  27 

that  set  the  story  going;  it  was  the  actual  discovery  of 
it.  Now,  the  wish  and  the  ensuing  act  came  from  his 
character,  no  doubt.  But  the  presence  of  the  circular 
did  not.  It  was  as  accidental  as  the  direction  of  the  wind 
outside  the  hotel.  So  far  as  his  passionate  curiosity  about 
the  girl  was  concerned,  he  might  have  found  nothing  in 
her  room. 

But  we  need  not  insist  too  zealously  upon  this  distinc- 
tion. For  the  issue  does  not  turn  upon  anybody's 
notion  of  what  a  plot  is,  but  rather  upon  what  is  dramatic 
in  a  plot.  What  we  vaguely  call  plot  and  discern  jnjhp 
modern  short  story  is  the  draniatic 'quality^  and  it  is 
only  because  we  hope  to  discover  it  in  plots  that  we 
analyze  the  latter.  Now  Howells  may  be  right  insofar 
as  he  means  that  the  reader's  interest  always  centres 
upon  the  hero's  ingenuity  and  daring  in  getting  the  better 
of  circumstances,  or  upon  his  cowardice  or  villainy  or 
dulness  or,  in  general,  upon  his  way  of  managing  affairs. 
But  this  managing  is  only  one  of  two  indispensable  factors 
in  drama.  Pure,  abstract  character,  however  triumphant 
and  glorious,  cannot  spin  drama  out  of  itself.  A  mer- 
chant dictating  a  business  letter  to  a  docile  and  competent 
stenographer  is  making  things  happen  according  to  his 
own  will  and  nature.  But  the  act  is  not  dramatic.  A 
citizen  refusing  to  buy  a  red  cravat  because  his  wife  dis- 
likes the  hue  is  displaying  character.  But  the  deed, 
unqualified  by  certain  unforeseen,  uncontrolled  complica- 
tions and  consequences,  is  not  dramatic.  It  could  not 
be  told  approprig(!tely  in  a  short  story  unless  it  drove  the 
uxorious  hero  into  a  fatal  quarrel  with  a  haberdashing 
desperado,  or  led  his  wife  to  despise  him  for  his  softness 
and  to /run  ^away  from  him.  In  other  words,  there 
must  be  a  climax,  an  event  remarkable  in  some  respect; 
and  something  must  happen  to  the  character  as  a 
result    of    something    which    he    has    done;    and,    as 


28  SHORT  STORY   WRITING 

IIuwulls  wiohes,  the  character  must  express  himself  in 
the  episodes. 

In  other  words,\every  story  whose  excellence  is  gen- 
erally admitted  is  more  than  a  picture  of  character, 
more  than  a  good  complication,  more  than  a  fragment  of 
biography,  and  more  than^an  exciting  episode.  It  is  all 
these  together,  and  in  it  they  are  so  arranged  that  the 
reader  is  surprised  by  what  happens  to  the  hero,  and 
thrilled  by  what  the  hero  does  to  each  situation.  This 
thrill  is  the  thrill  of  drama,  only  if  the  hero^omehow 
exhibits  his  human  nature  hy  conduct  in  a  crisis]  There 
may  be  as  many  dramatic  qualities  as  there  are  traits  of 
human  nature  and  typical  crises;  between  the  blackest, 
unrelieved  tragedy  and  the  frothiest  farce  the  spectrum 
is  long.  But  all  the  shades  in  it  have  this  common 
characteristic,  namely,  conduct  in  a  crisis.  And  this  is 
the  second  constituent  ideal  of  the  modem  short  story, 
the  ideal  fostered  in  France  and  now  generally  accepted. 
We  shall  soon  have  much  to  say  about  its  pecuUarities. 

4.  What  the  single  effect  involves. 

We  have  now  to  ask  whether  the  first  ideal  demands 
any  special  structure  or  material.  It  does  not.  It  may  be 
gained  ma  variety  of  ways,  the  two  basic  types  of  which  are: 

a.  Building  the  story  around  a  theme. 

b.  Emphasizing  one  or  more  of  the  three  factors  in  the 
dramatic  narrative. 

a.  Thematic  development.  The  theme  can  best  be 
described  in  contrast  with  the  plot  and  the  setting,  with 
which  it  blends  so  deftly  in  the  finished  work  that  the 
casual  reader  seldom  distinguishes  them.  The  term 
Hheme',  is  widely  employed  in  two  senses.  Its  com- 
moner meaning  is  'a  topic,  a  subject  of  discourse'.  So 
used,  it  leads  us  to  say,  for  example,  that  the  fatal  panic 
of  Viscount  de  Signoles  is  the  theme  of  Maupassant's 
little  masterpiece,  A  Coward;  and  that  the  softening  of 


I 


<0 

WHAT  IS  A  SHORT  STORY?  29 

the  Abbe  Mar?  gnat's  heart  toward  beauty  and  love  is  the 
theme  of  Moontight  Over  against  this  connotation 
stands  the  more  technical  one,  which  is  the  'miderlying 
idea\  The  looser  first  meaning  is  little  more  than  a 
rough  indication  of  the  dramatic  narrative  as  a  whole; 
it  tells  what  happens.  But  the  second  meaning  is  the 
import  of  what  happens.  It  is  the  idea  of  which  the 
narrative  is  the  dramatic  expression.  It  bears  the  same 
relation  to  the  narrative  that  the  first  four  notes  of 
Beethoven's  Fifth  Sjnnphony  bear  to  the  world  of 
melody  which  follows  them.  Out  of  this  short  motif 
the  entire  symphony  grows;  it  expresses  the  full  esthetic 
value  of  the  simple  combination.  So  too  with  the 
thematic  story;  it  dramatically  amplifies  a  proposition. 
Often  it  really  is,  and  always  it  has  at  least  the  air  of  be- 
ing, an  empirical  proof  of  the  proposition.  The  writer's 
interest  centres  upon  the  law  or  other  truth,  not  upon 
the  persons  or  episodes  of  the  story.  He  tells  the 
story  for  the  sake  of  the  truth  it  drives  home,  rather 
than  for  the  poignancy  or  humor  or  sweetness  of  its 
happenings. 

Consider  O.  Henry's  powerful,  somewhat  freakishly 
constructed  romance,  A  Municipal  Report.  0.  Henry 
undertakes  to  show  that  Frank  Norris  didn't  know  what 
he  was  talking  about  when  he  wrote:  "Fancy  a  novel 
about  Chicago  or  Buffalo,  let  us  say,  or  Nashville,  Tennes- 
see! There  are  just  three  big  cities  in  the  United  States 
which  are  *  story  cities' — New  York,  of  course.  New 
Orleans,  and,  best  of  all,  San  Francisco."  O.  Henry  knew 
this  was  libellous  nonsense.  He  knew  the  world  too  well 
to  be  deceived  into  thinking  that  times  and  places  give 
life  and  color  to  the  deeds  of  mankind.  "It  is  a  rash  one", 
he  protested,  "who  will  lay  his  finger  on  the  map  and 
say:  'In  this  town  there  can  be  no  romance — what  could 
happen  here?'"     And  by  way  of  proof  he  wrote  about 


30  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

Azalea  Adair,  of  eight-sixty-one  Jessamine  Street,  Nash- 
ville; and  he  demolished  Norris'  juvenile  dictum. 

The  theme  of  A  Municipal  Report  is:  'Romance  is  the 
slave   of   neither   times   nor   places/     The   plot   is   the 
dramatic    instance    illustrating    this    proposition.     It    is 
the  climactic  series  of  happening  which  exhibits  the  gen- 
eral law  asserted  in  the  theme.     Now,  just  as  in  a  natural 
science,  so  too  in  the  fictionist's  domain;  any  one  of  an 
infinite  multitude  of  events  suffices  to  demonstrate  a  law. 
Any  star  in  the  sky,  any  pebble  under  foot,  any  falling 
apple    establishes    the    principle    of    gravitation.     Like- 
wise, to  have  affirmed  his  theme,  O.  Henry  might  have 
cited  the  strange  adventures  of  Amy  Smith,  of  Scranton, 
Pa.;  or  what  befell  Count  Vaurien,  the  spy  of  Napoleon; 
or  the  trouble  that  descended  upon  Herr  Spitz,  collector 
of  the  port  of  Munich;  or  the  deeds  of  Uk-Tuk,  chief  of 
the  Mu-ri,  in  the  forgotten  days  of  the  Stone  Hammer. 
Again,  to  prove  that  Romance  laughs  at  geographers,  he 
might    have    played    upon    innumerable    complications, 
now  of  French  folly,  now  of  big  business  in  Bolivia,  now 
of  racial  rows  in  Russia,  now  of  rate  wars  in  ancient 
Rome.     And  with  this  theme,  so  with  nearly  all  others. 
Each  may  be  adequately  exhibited  in  any  one  of  an 
innumerable  host  of  plots.     And  this  fact  marks  one  of 
the  differences  between  theme  and  plot. 

A  similar  contrast  may  be  drawn  between  plot  and 
setting.  Given  one  set  of  people  displaying  opinions 
and  desires  which  bring  about  the  dramatic  complica- 
tiou;  and  you  may  vary  the  geographical  details  with 
considerable  freedom.  Not  every  change  in  these  brings 
with  it  a  modification  of  the  dramatic  quality,  still  less 
of  the  theme.  A  brave  fireman  will  rescue  a  cripple  from 
a  burning  building,  be  the  building  a  soap  factory  or  a 
Methodist  church,  be  it  in  Shanghai  or  Kalamazoo. 
There  are  thus  two  degrees  of  elasticity  in  the  handling 


WHAT   IS   A  SHORT   STORY?  31 

of  a  theme:  first,  the  theme  may  be  depicted  in  many 
plots;  and,  secondly,  each  plot  may  be  developed  in  many 
settings.^ 

It  must  now  be  evident  that  the  thematic  story  re- 
sembles the  didactic.  And  we  must  designate  their  rela- 
tion closely. 

The  thematic  story  differs  from  the  didactic,  not  in  the 
nature  of  its  theme  nor  in  the  clearness  of  the  dramatic 
proof  of  the  theme,  hut  in  the  single  effect  produced. 

In  the  thematic  story  the  dramatic  narrative  is  stronger 
than  the  pure  theme.  In  the  didactic  story  the  pure  theme 
is  stronger  than  the  dramatic  narrative. 

The  adjective,  'stronger',  here  means  'stronger  in 
effect\  It  does  not  mean  more  significant  or  more  moral; 
it  refers  only  to  the  superior  intensity  of  the  reader's 
impression.  Were  a  critic  to  classify  stories  exclusivelv 
with  respect  to  their  material,  he  could  discern  no  de- 
ference between  the  types  we  have  just  distinguished. 
Exactly  the  same  themes  and  the  identical  characters, 
compHcations,  and  setting  may  be  made  to  yield  either 
variety. 

Suppose  you  were  to  write  about  the  sinking  of  the 
Titanic  and  wished  to  show  that  heroism  is  not  a  rare  and 
difficult  act  which  only  a  few  men  of  tremendous  will 
power  and  lofty  ideals  can  perform,  but  is,  on  the  con- 
trary, a  common,  natural,  and  easy  deed.  You  might 
tell  the  whole  story  without  mentioning  this  theme, 
even  indirectly.  There  might  be  no  more  than  a  pic- 
ture of  the  little  bell  boys,  puffing  cigarettes  in  the  dining 
room,  while  the  stricken  vessel  slowly  tilted  on  end;  or  of 

^  The  contrast  between  plot  and  setting  may  suggest  that  these 
factors  are  generically  different.  This  would  be  a  serious  confusion. 
The  setting  is  a  part  of  the  plot:  It  is,  however,  a  peculiar  part 
in  that  it  is  essential  and  yet  not  very  influential  in  coloring  the 
dramatic  factors. 


32  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

the  stokers  standing  knee-deep  in  icy  water;  or  of  the 
travelers  playing  poker  in  the  smoking  room  until  the 
cards  slipped  off  the  tipping  table.  And  yet  the  reader 
would  carry  away  the  theme  as  surely  as  if  you  had 
bellowed  it  text-wise  into  his  ears;  and  the  story  would 
be  thematic.  On  the  other  hand,  you  might  begin  with 
the  remark  that  men  are  wont  to  think  of  heroes  as 
towering,  solitary  figures,  but  that  this  is  false.  Then 
you  might  tell  your  story,  arranging  the  incidents  solely 
with  an  eye  to  the  proof.  In  so  doing,  you  would  perhaps 
suppress  much  that  might  have  heightened  the  dramatic 
effect.  You  might  drop  into  colorless  reporting,  with 
the  result  that,  through  it  all,  your  reader  would  not  be 
absorbed  in  the  episodes  but  would  be  thinking  of  what 
you  sought  to  establish.  Or  else  the  story  might  run 
along  smoothly  without  this  effect  up  to  the  very  close; 
and  there  its  climax  might  be  so  weak  that  the  reader 
would  slip  instantly  from  it  to  the  theme.  In  this  case 
your  story  would  be  didactic. 

Many  stories,  namely,  those  whose  themes  are  not 
perceptibly  stronger  nor  weaker  than  their  dramatic 
development,  cannot  be  classified  under  either  head,  ex- 
cept by  some  arbitrary  ruling.  There  is  little  doubt 
that  Hawthorne  intended  The  Birthmark  to  be  didactic, 
yet,  to  many  readers,  the  moral  goes  lost  behind  the 
tragedy  of  Aylmer  and  Georgiana.  Poe,  on  the  other 
hand,  probably  had  no  desire  to  preach  when  he  wrote 
William  Wilson;  but  this  story  may  readily  be  experi- 
enced as  a  fictional  sermon;  for  the  drama  in  it  is  not 
terrific,  while  the  theme  is  crystal-clear.  Again,  0.  Henry's 
stories  frequently  purport  to  be  didactic,  in  a  light- 
hearted  way,  but  almost  always  the  whimsical  drama 
gets  the  better  of  the  preacher;  and  the  reader  is  left 
wondering  whether  the  yarn  was  spun  for  the  sake  of  the 
moral,  or  the  moral  for  the  yarn. 


WHAT   IS   A  SHORT   STORY?  33 

The  single  effect  of  the  didactic  story  is  likely  to  be 
sharp  but  not  emotional.  Its  natural  quality  is  in- 
tellectual. It  is  therefore  a  difficult  species,  and  most 
attempts  at  it  fail  miserably.  The  stories  which  succeed 
in  influencing  the  public  most  strongly  are  not  the  didactic 
but  most  often  the  thematic.  And  anybody  who  has 
.  tried  to  write  both  kinds  knows  why  this  is  so;  it  is  be- 
cause dramatic  narrative  is  most  easily  managed  when 
one's  attention  is  concentrated  upon  the  drama  itself, 
and  further  because  most  well  told  tales  display  their  own 
moral  unaided.  The  more  you  try  to  help  a  story  preach, 
the  more  help  it  needs. 

b.  Emphatic   development.     Every    narrative    contains  ^ 
three-basitj  factors  which  enter,  in  widely  varying  degrees,  i/ 
into    the   structure   and   qualify   the   total   impression. 
They  are: 

i.  Character. 

ii.  Complication. 

iii.  Setting. 
i.  Character.    There  cannot  be  a  dramatic  situation 
without  human  beings.     The  only  apparent  exception  is  - 
the  story  with  an  animal  hero.     But  even  here  it  is  a 
human  trait  which  is  read  into  the  creature  and  made  to 
sustain  the  narrative. 

ii.  Complication.  This  includes  the  entanglements  of 
persons  and  circumstances  which  make  the  plot.  The 
villain's  designs  against  the  poor  working  girl,  the  old 
man's  discovery  that  his  son  has  betrayed  him,  the  love  of 
two  men  for  the  same  girl,  the  rumor  of  hidden  treasure 
that  sends  buccaneers  racing  across  the  brine, — these 
are  meagre  samples  of  the  limitless  congregation  of 
complicating  factors. 

iii.  Setting.     Broadly  speaking,  the    place    where    the 
plot  unfolds  is  the  story's  setting;  and  all  the  furniture   ^ 
of  the  place  belongs  thereunto.     The  hilltop  on  which 


34  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

the  beacon  fires  are  lighted,  the  vale  where  the  con- 
spirators meet  at  midnight,  the  battered  oaken  chest  that 
holds  the  ciphered  will  of  the  dead  duke— of  such  stuff, 
^yr  geographical  and  otherwise,  are  settings  made. 

Now,  each  'story  germ'  (that  is,  the  vague  outlme  of 
the  central  complication)  may  assume  a  variety  of  forms, 
each  the  outgrowth  of  some  shght  change  in  the  action  or 
characters  or  situation.  Furthermore,  one  variation 
demands  a  peculiarly  rich  development  of  some  character 
trait,  while  another  stresses  the  mystery  or  the  horror  or 
the  charm  of  the  plot,  and  a  third  comes  to  its  own  only 
if  the  environment  is  minutely  drawn. 

These  three  directions  of  emphasis  result  in  three  funda- 
mental types  of  story.  The  single  effect  is  produced,  now 
in  character  drawing,  now  in  the  dramatic  intensity  of  the 
plot,  and  710W  in  the  sensuous  quality  of  the  setting.  And 
the  resulting  types  are  comrnonly  called,  respectively, 

1.  The  character  story. 

2.  The  complication  story. 

3.  The  atmosphere  story. 

These  are  the  fundamental  types,  but  not  the  only 
ones.  Some  plots  not  only  allow  but  even  necessitate 
the  intensification  of  some  two  of  the  three  factors,  and 
some  few  call  for  the  almost  equal  development  of  all 
three.     Hence    four    more    types,    all    compound,    are 

possible: 

4.  The  character-complication  story. 
^.  The  character-atmosphere  story. 

6.  The  complication-atmosphere  story. 

7.  The  three-phase  story. 

Two  warnings  must  at  once  be  issued  to  the  student. 
The  first  is  that  he  must  not  suppose  intensification  of 
one  factor  to  involve  the  total  suppression  of  the  others^ 
A  character  story  is  by  no  means  one-witbout  plot  and 
atmosphere;  that  would  be  no  genuine  story  at  all,  but 


WHAT  IS  A   SHORT  STORY?  36 

only  a  character  sketch  or  an  anecdote.  You  will  find 
these  two  types  illustrated  in  Galsworthy's  volume, 
A  Motley;  the  bitter  little  draught  of  life  called  Once 
More  is  a  model  character  story,  while  A  Portrait  is  a 
character  sketch.  And  now  the  second  warning:  the 
seven  types  above  are  not  so  many  ideals  toward  which 
any  given  theme  or  plot  might  be  driven,  as  the  writer 
chooses.  They  are  different  forms  which  particular 
themes  and  plots  impose  upon  the  well  modelled  story. 
You  cannot  shape  a  complete  plot  or  theme,  now  into 
the  mold  of  a  character  story,  now  into  that  of  an  at- 
mosphere story,  as  your  fancy  pleases.  The  mature  cast 
of  a  story  lies  largely  predestined  in  the  plot  or  theme. 
There  is,  to  be  sure,  a  considerable  elasticity  of  detail 
in  its  outworking  and  on  rare  occasions  enough  to  make 
it  eligible  to  either  of  two  forms.  Atmosphere,  for 
example,  can  often  be  intensified  to  suit  one's  taste. 
Nevertheless,  the  rule  holds  broadly,  as  the  student  will 
learn  by  analyzing  two  extreme  specimens,  such  as 
Henry  James'  The  Turn  of  the  Screw  and  G.  Henry's 
The  Furnished  Room. 

Here  are  two  ghost  stories  as  far  apart  as  the  poles  in 
every  detail  and  in  every  essential,  except  that  both 
touch  the  cold  hem  of  the  supernatural.  The  Turn  of 
the  Screw  is  a  three-phase  story.  The  governess's  loyalty, 
daring  and  love  shape  the  course  of  events  dramatically — 
and  there  you  have  a  character  story.  The  mysterious 
power  which  the  two  evil  spirits  exercise  over  the  un- 
happy children,  and  the  strange  trickeries  of  the  children, 
and  the  incomprehensible  deaths  of  former  employees  at 
Bly  all  make  it  a  story  of  terrific  complication.  And, 
finally,  the  awful  spectres,  the  face  at  the  window,  the 
visions  across  the  lake,  the  encounters  on  the  stairs — 
all  these  are  as  sudden  gusts  out  of  a  deep,  black  cave, 
freezing  cold;  they  sweep  through  the  whole  story — and 


36  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

there  you  have  the  intensely  sensuous  development  of  the 
setting  which  makes  an  atmosphere  story.  The  Fur- 
nished Room,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a  simple  complica- 
tion 9tory,  enriched  with  many  a  touch  of  atmosphere, 
but  not  deriving  its  strength  from  such.  The  ghost 
is  very  different  from  the  unspeakable  Quint  in  James' 
story.  Only  a  whiff  of  perfume,  nothing  more!  Such 
a  very  sweet,  insubstantial  spectre,  and  so  shy  withal, 
that  you  quite  forget  her  in  the  midst  of  the  simple 
pathos  of  the  complication. 

Now  let  the  student  try  to  think  of  James  developing 
his  plot  as  a  simple  comphcation  story  with  the  strong 
but  accessory  tinges  of  atmosphere  such  as  The  Fur- 
nished Room  exhibits.  The  utter  impossibility  appears 
in  a  minute.  James  would  have  to  throw  away  half  his 
idea,  to  do  that.  The  vital  part  played  by  the  governess 
would  go  by  the  board;  and  with  it  would  go  the  soul 
of  the  story,  for  the  whole  tragedy  is  born  of  her  stubborn 
will.  And  now  reverse  the  problem;  attempt  to  expand 
the  other  story  into  a  three-phase  one.  It  cannot  be  ac- 
complished, inasmuch  as  there  is  nothing  for  either  lover 
to  do,  by  force  of  character;  no  crisis  to  fight  through, 
no  enemies  to  overcome,  no  moral  issue  to  settle,  but  only 
the  pathetic  little  coincidence  of  the  boy's  chancing  upon 
the  very  room  where  his  lost  sweetheart  had  just  died, 
and  then  the  unearthly  whiff  of  mignonette.  That 
is  the  story  !^ 

5.  Final  classification  of  story  types.  The  foregoing 
analysis  discloses  two  species  of  stories,  each  of  which  is 
iThis  whole  question  has  nothing  to  do  with  that  of  an  author's 
style.  We  are  not  asking  whether  O .  Henry  could  have  written  Henry 
James'  story,  and  James  contrived  O.  Henry's.  Nor  are  we  asking 
whether  James  would  have  changed  O.  Henry's  plot,  had  he  chosen 
it.  Our  question  has  to  do  with  structural  possibilities  of  the 
story  material  These  are  much  deeper  than  individual  tastes 
and  styles. 


The  Short  Story 


WHAT   IS  A   SHORT   STORY?  37 

distinguished  by  the  direction  in  which  its  single  effect 
arises.  The  following  scheme  orders  them  and  their 
minor  varieties: 

Thematic 
Variation:  Didactic, 

Emphatic: 

3  pure  sub-types: 
Character. 
Complication. 
Atmosphere. 

4  complex  variations: 
combinations  of  the  above  S, 

These  distinctions,  of  course,  are  much  clearer  in  this 
table  than  in  real  life.  The  two  main  species  especially 
often  blur  before  the  reader's  eyes;  but  this  is  due  to  a 
peculiarity  of  the  human  mind,  not  to  a  flaw  in  our 
analysis.  The  difference  between  the  thematic  and 
the  emphatic  story  is  as  great  as  the  difference  between 
proving  that  all  men  are  liars  and  saying  so  vehemently. 
But  it  is  no  greater.  Genuine  in  reason,  it  often  dwindles 
to  the  vanishing  point  in  practice,  thanks  to  the  fact  that 
most  people  cannot  easily  hold  proof  apart  from  emphasis. 
You  may  persuade  them  occasionally  with  rigorous  dem- 
onstration, but  most  often  by  uttering  your  point  many, 
many  times  with  polite  fervor  and  a  pleasing  variety  of 
phrase.  This  is  the  device  of  old-fashioned  politics,  new- 
fashioned  advertising,  agreeable  conversation,  and  much 
excellent  instructive  fiction.  The  vivid  picture  becomes 
the  proved  theme.  Hence  the  well  written  emphatic 
story  is  with  difficulty  marked  off  from  the  genuine  the- 
matic story.  But  this  fact  does  not  reduce  the  two  types 
to  one;  it  only  hides  their  profound  difference. 

6.  How  other  forms  of  brief  fiction  differ  from  the  short 
story.     Our  definition  demarcates  the  short  story  quite 


38  SHORT   STORY   WRITING 

sharply,  and  yet  without  Hmiting  the  type  mechanically, 
as  all  other  definitions  of  it  do.  (1)  The  anecdote, 
episode,  report,  sketch,  and  tale  need  not  be  dramatic 
and  need  not  produce  a  single  effect.  Thus  they  are 
doubly  distinguished  from  the  short  story.  (2)  The 
novelette  is  better,  if  dramatic;  but  it  is  under  no  com- 
pulsion to  be  so.  And  likewise  with  its  unity  of  im- 
pression. (3)  The  allegory,  the  fable,  and  the  puzzle 
story  need  not  be  dramatic,  but  they  must  produce  the 
single  effect.  For  the  purpose  of  the  allegory  is  to 
depict  an  analogy,  and  so  the  analogical  effect  must  be 
supreme  and  undisturbed.  The  aim  of  the  fable  is  to 
point  a  moral.  And  the  ideal  of  the  puzzle  story  (such 
as  Poe's  Gold  Bug  or  the  ordinary  detective  story)  is, 
forsooth,  to  puzzle  you;  and  it  would  fail  were  it  to 
turn  you  from  the  mystery  to  the  beauty  of  the  charac- 
ters, to  some  doctrinal  issue  or  to  the  charm  of  the 
diction.  (4)  The  one-act  play  must,  of  course,  be  dra- 
matic; and  it  is  more  successful,  if  it  produces  a  single 
effect.  But  it  is  not  narrative;  and  so,  even  when  it 
produces  a  single  effect,  the  latter  is  not  literary  but 
theatrical  and  demands  staging  and  acting  to  bring  out 
its  proper  values.  Nevertheless,  the  one-act  play  is  the 
next  of  kin  to  the  short  story;  for  it  differs  from  the  latter 
less  in  its  ideals  and  purposes  than  in  its  medium  of  ex- 
pression. 

Illustrations.  (1)  Washington  Irving's  Rip  Van  Winkle 
is  commonly  counted  with  the  short  stories.  But  this  is 
a  mistake.  It  possesses  no  quality  of  the  species,  but  only 
some  external,  mechanical,  and  largely  accidental  features. 
It  has  one  central  character,  it  turns  around  one  pre- 
dominating incident,  it  is  fantastic,  and  the  number  of 
its  words  falls  within  the  orthodox  limit  set  by  the  business 
managers  of  our  magazines.  But  with  these  non-essen- 
tials its  likeness  to  the  type  ends.     There  is  not  a  trace  of 


WHAT  IS  A  SHORT  STORY?  39 

dramatic  action  in  it,  though  the  opportunities  for  it  are 
many.  The  tale  falls  into  three  parts;  the  first  depicting 
Rip's  character  and  his  family  troubles;  the  second 
telling  of  his  encounter  with  Hendrick  Hudson  and  his 
crew;  and  the  third  recounting  the  adventures  that  fol- 
lowed Rip's  long  sleep.  Now,  in  none  of  these  is  it  the 
amiable  old  loafer's  character  (or  lack  of  character,  if  you 
will)  that  shapes  the  course  of  events.  The  nearest 
approach  to  such  dramatic  knitting  is  made  in  that 
moment  when  Rip,  smarting  under  the  tongue-lashings 
of  Dame  Van  Winkle,  slunk  off  with  dog  and  gun  into 
the  peace  of  the  woods.  But  did  he  resolve  to  wander 
far,  or  to  lose  himself,  or  to  stay  away  until  after  night- 
fall? No.  He  ''imconsciously  scrambled  to  one  of  the 
highest  parts  of  the  Kaatskill  mountains."  Unconsciously! 
With  that  word  the  very  thought  of  drama  vanishes. 
Rip  simply  blundered  forth  upon  an  adventure,  as  Sinbad 
the  Sailor  did.  And  so  forth  to  the  end,  always  a  care- 
free victim  of  circumstances. 

Look  now  to  the  impression  created.  Can  you  say 
that  it  is  single?  I,  for  one,  cannot.  On  the  contrary 
one  of  the  most  precious  charms  of  the  tale  is  its  exquisite 
modulation.  Few  specimens  of  brief  fiction  can  match 
the  almost  Tuusical  quality  of  its  transitions  from  one 
emotional  key  to  another.  It  melts  from  pastoral  to 
comic,  from  comic  to  weird,  from  weird  to  pathetic, 
from  pathetic  to  placid,  always  with  grace  and  smooth- 
ness. And  when  the  last  word  has  been  read,  one  listener 
may  dwell  upon  Dame  Van  Winkle's  temper,  another 
may  linger  over  the  ghostlj^  bowlers,  a  third  laugh  at 
Rip,  and  a  fourth  marvel  at  the  twenty-year  slumber. 
Ask  for  the  one  idea,  the  single  sentiment  which  the 
tale  embodies,  and  none  can  say.  In  this  uncertainty 
we  find  the  final  proof  that  it  is  a  tale  and  not  a  short 
story. 


40  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

(2)  The  Aspern  Papers,  by  Henry  James,  is  a  tj^jical 
novelette.  It  verges  toward  the  novel  in  length,  in  the 
multiplicity  of  its -wa^rests,  and  in  the  fulness  of  its 
delineations.  As  we  shall  soon  see,  the  short  story 
cannot  develop  more  than  one  character  trait,  without 
marring  its  single  effect  (either  by  becoming  too  long 
or  else  arousing  interest  in  several  conflicting  sides  of  the 
hero's  nature).  But,  in  The  Aspern  Papers,  at  least 
five  character  traits  are  quite  elaborately  pictured 
and  these  reside  not  in  one  person,  but  in  three,  each 
of  whom  alternately  claims  our  full  interest,  if  not  our 
sympathies.  In  short,  the  situation  resembles  real  life 
much  more  than  that  of  any  short  story  can  hope  to. 
It  is  intricate,  and  we,  its  spectators,  are  not  held  by 
some  single  theme  or  interest  so  much  as  by  the  battle 
of  many  natures  and  aspirations.  Loyalty  to  a  long- 
dead  lover,  hatred  of  publicity  in  private  matters,  a 
belated  affection,  family  pride,  and  the  collector's  mania 
struggle,  now  desperately,  now  comically,  with  one  an- 
other; and  the  reader  sees  the  minutest  details  of  their 
encounters.  All  of  which  is  plainly  impossible  in  a 
short  story. 

(3)  The  allegory,  the  fable,  and  the  puzzle  story  are 
so  obviously  unrestricted  by  dramatic  considerations 
that  no  analysis  of  specimens  is  called  for  here.  The 
first  two  types  commonly  do  nothing  more  than  dress 
up  a  single  incident,  regardless  of  character  and  com- 
plication. Only  that  much  is  developed  which  is  de- 
manded for  illustrating  the  moral  or  sharpening  the 
simile.  Read  any  of  ^Esop's  fables  or  the  parables  of 
the  New  Testament;  and  you  will  find  this  true. 

The  puzzle  story  is  frequently  overlaid  with  at  least 
the  semblance  of  dramatic  action;  and,  when  it  is,  it  is 
not  easily  held  apart  from  the  genuine  short  story.  Not 
a  few  excellent  detective  stories  present  this  difficulty. 


WHAT   IS  A  SHORT  STORY?  41 

The  Purloined  Letter,  by  Poe,  does  so;  the  court  intrigue 
out  of  which  the  theft  grows  is  thoroughly  dramatic, 
and  Poe  plays  on  it   cleverly  throughout  the  opening 

movement.     The    minister    D ,    ambitious    to    gain 

control  over  an  illustrious  personage,  chances  to  see  a 
compromising  letter  on  the  illustrious  personage's  table, 
and  steals  it.  Here  is  a  situation  which  might  naturally 
work  out  through  the  characters  in  it.  The  casual 
reader,  sensing  this,  may  fancy  he  has  a  dramatic  story 
before  him.  But  he  has  not.  For  this  potentially  dra- 
matic situation  has  nothing  to  do  with  Dupin's  discovery 
of  the  letter.  It  is  the  minister's  diabolical  ingenuity 
that  generates  the  mystery;  he  hides  the  letter  where 
the  shrewdest  detectives  cannot  find  it.  It  is  not  his 
ambition,  still  less  his  dramatic  relation  to  the  illustrious 
personage,  that  counts  in  the  central  problem  of  the 
story. 

But  The  Purloined  Letter — and  with  it  many  mystery 
stories — does  fulfil  the  American  ideal  pretty  well.  It 
produces  a  single  effect.  As  this  was  all  that  Poe  sought, 
it  would  be  absurd  to  say  the  work  is  imperfect.  One 
might  as  well  say  that  a  street  sign  is  imperfect  because 
it  does  not  possess  the  qualities  of  a  public  oration. 

(4)  KipMng,  Howells  and  Anthony  Hope  show  us 
how  close  the  one-act  play  is  to  the  short  story.  The  Dolly 
Dialogues  often  teave  you  in  doubt  as  to  whether  you 
are  reading  drama  or  story.  The  Hill  of  Illusion,  by 
Kipling,  on  the  other  hand,  though  neither  drama  nor 
story,  is  a  thing  between.  And  many  curtain  raisers  might 
be  put  straight  over  into  prose  and  sold  to  magazines. 
All  of  which  shows  that  the  only  decisive  difference  be- 
tween the  species  is  in  the  form  of  presentation.  The 
one-act  play  must  be  all  action,  all  obvious,  and  all 
visible  to  the  dullest  eye.  But  not  so  with  the  short 
story;  it  may  be  full  of  contemplations,  talk,  and  mean- 


42  SHORT   STORY  WRITING 

ings  that  hide  between  the  Unes.  Hence^  while  every 
one-act  play  may  be  translated  into  a  story  without 
mutilation,  not  every  story  can  be  dramatized  without 
important  changes  of  detail. 

7.  The  short  story  cannot  he  defined  in  terms  of  its  specific 
material  nor  by  its  mechanical  form.  Many  attempts 
have  been  made  to  designate  the  constituent  stuff  and 
the  irreducible  pattern  of  the  short  story.  But  all  of 
them  come  to  grief.  For  the  short  story,  as  we  have 
seen,  is  intrinsically  an  effect;  and,  being  such,  that 
which  produces  it  is  infinitely  various,  even  as  with  all 
other  effects.  If  you  wish  to  produce  a  bright  red  light 
you  may  do  so  with  this  or  that  chemical;  or  you  may  use 
electricity;  or  you  may  generate  a  white  light  and  sur- 
round it  with  red  glass  or  red  celluloid  or  any  of  a  thousand 
other  things.  It  happens,  of  course,  that  some  of  these 
devices  are  much  cheaper  and  simpler  than  others; 
and  so,  using  them  exclusively,  we  come  to  regard  them 
as  the  only  ones  in  existence.  But  this  belief  is  a  prag- 
matic fiction.  So  too  is  the  usual  recipe  for  the  short 
story. 

One  of  the  most  accurate  of  this  sort  is  Esenwein's,^ 
which  sums  up  all  previous  formulas.  The  short  story, 
according  to  him,  ''is  marked  by  seven  characteristics: 
1.  A  single  predominating  character;  2.  a  single  pre- 
eminent incident;  3.  imagination;  4.  plot;  5.  compression; 
6.  organization;  and  7.  unity  of  impression."  Now, 
the  first  three  of  these  designate  the  content  of  the  story 
(imagination  here  means  fantasy).  And  it  is  not  diffi- 
cult to  observe  that  none  of  them  is  absolutely  needed. 
Not  even  in  stories  which  aim  exclusively  at  the  single 
effect  do  we  regularly  find  either  the  single  predominant 
character  or  the  single  preeminent  incident.  To  recur 
to  the  ever-illuminating  Poe,   William  Wilson  has  two 

1  Wnting  the  Short  Story,     30. 


WHAT  IS  A  SHORT  STORY?  43 

equally  important  characters  and  no  central  incident. 
The  Pit  and  the  Pendulum  has  the  single  character, 
but  again  there  is  no  one  event  that  stands  out  above 
all  others — unless  you  call  the  whole  series  of  tortures  in 
the  pit  one  happening!  (Once  permit  that  trick  of 
counting,  however,  and  all  distinctions  evaporate.) 
Turn  now  to  dramatic  stories.  Kipling's  Beyond  the 
Pale  contains  two  lovers,  of  whom  one  might  say,  only 
after  much  sharp  reasoning,  that  the  poor  little  Bisesa 
is  dramatically  the  more  important.  There  is  a  climax — 
and  a  terrible  one — but  is  it  the  'predominating  incident' 
or  is  Trejago's  mad  love-making  that? 

As  for  imagination,  there  is  not  the  slightest  reason 
why  a  perfect  story  might  not  be  fashioned  from  pure 
facts.  Perhaps  things  never  happened  as  Kipling  nar- 
rates in  Beyond  the  Pale,  or  in  that  masterpiece.  Without 
Benefit  of  Clergy;  but  they  might  have,  even  down  to  the 
minutest  item.  And,  because  they  might  have,  we  must 
say  that  imagination  is  not  essential.  At  most,  it  is 
commonly  invoked.  Some  authors,  however,  pride  them- 
selves upon  using  nothing  but  facts  or  the  essence  of 
fact;  and  in  their  stories  you  will  find  seldom  a  trace  of 
fancy.  There  is  none  of  it  in  Howells'  The  Pursuit  of  the 
Piano.  There  is  none  of  it  in  James'  penetrating  char- 
acter-drama. The  Liar.  And  there  is  none  of  it  in  Mrs. 
Wharton's  marvelous  horror,  Ethan  Frame.  Indeed, 
few  good  stories  of  recent  years  reveal  complications  and 
turns  of  character  that  might  not  have  been  foimd  in 
some  morning's  newspaper. 

Most  good  short  stories  have,  to  be  sure,  only  one  cen- 
tral character,  one  crucial  incident,  and  at  least  a  light 
touch  of  fancy.  It  is  not  strange,  therefore,  that  these 
are  usually  thought  to  be  intrinsic  structures.  Neverthe- 
less they  are  not.  They  are  only  common  consequences 
of  the  double  ideal.    Other  things  being  equal,  a  short 


44  SHORT   STORY  WRITING 

story  is  no  finer  for  having  them.  But  usually  it  is 
easier  to  create  a  fine  story  by  so  limiting  your  material 
and  by  drawing  upon  your  fantasies.  Recall  the  double 
ideal,  a  narrative  drama  with  single  effect.  Now,  the 
drama  calls  for  characters  and  incidents;  but  to  produce 
with  these  a  single  effect,  you  must  often  reduce  them 
to  their  lowest  terms.  As  we  shall  see  more  fully  in 
another  chapter,  human  nature  in  its  real  forms  presents 
so  many  opposing  tendencies  and  shifts  so  complexly 
from  moment  to  moment  that  you  will  seldom  be  al- 
lowed to  depict  it  in  its  natural  fulness  and  plasticity. 
The  single  effect  comes  not  from  it,  but  rather  from 
each  of  its  single  constituent  appetites,  impulses,  prej- 
udices, and  habits.  Hence  your  story  will  tend  to 
portray  not  a  character  but  a  trait.  Likewise  with 
events.  They,  too,  are  likely  to  be  intricate,  and  the 
impression  they  set  up  manifold  and  mixed.  This  is 
true  of  each  episode  individually,  and  doubly  true  of  a 
series.  In  real  life  the  number  of  unequivocal  happen- 
ings is  astoundingly  small.  Even  a  woodshed  afire  will 
fill  one  spectator  with  dread,  another  with  the  joy  of  ex- 
citement, and  a  third  with  pity  for  the  owner;  and  it 
may  even  send  one  spectator  around  the  circuit  of  these 
three  emotions.  If  the  reader  will  once  more  reflect 
upon  Rip  Van  Winkle,  he  will  see  how  episodes  may 
hang  together  pleasantly  and  still  induce  a  variety  of 
moods.  He  will  learn,  too,  why  the  story  whose  aim  is 
to  produce  only  one  effect  is  prone  to  play  around  only 
one  incident.  And,  finally,  he  will  see  why  the  writer 
must  so  frequently  draw  upon  his  imagination.  The 
materials  of  real  life  must  often  be  extensively  tampered 
with;  some  of  them  cast  out  altogether,  and  pure  inven- 
tions inserted,  to  the  end  that  the  whole  may  work  but  one 
witchery.  Nevertheless,  the  single  character,  the  single 
episode,  and  the  touch  of  fancy  are  only  incidental  re- 


WHAT  IS  A  SHORT  STORY?  45 

straints.  Their  inevitability  in  some  stories  does  not 
make  them  vital  to  the  genre. 

There  remain  two  alleged  characteristics  which  must 
be  discarded.  These  are  compression  and  organization. 
The  former  is  only  one  phase  of  the  unity  of  impression; 
the  latter  is  indistinguishable  from  the  plot.  As  Poe 
pointed  out,  when  contrasting  the  tale  with  the  novel, 
*' simple  cessation  in  reading  would,  of  itself,  be  sufficient 
to  destroy  the  true  unity  of  impression".^  Hence  the 
well  modelled  short  story  must  admit  of  being  read  easily 
at  a  single  sitting.  Now,  if  the  plot  is  intrinsically  simple 
and  swift,  no  compression  is  demanded.  The  story  may 
be  fully  told  in  well  under  ten  thousand  words.  To 
say  that  it  is  compressed  simply  because  it  is  short  in 
comparison  with  Vanity  Fair  would  be  about  as  sensible 
as  to  say  that  a  man  is  compressed  into  a  body  much 
smaller  than  an  elephant^s.  If  the  word  means  anything, 
compressing  means  packing  something  into  less  space 
than  it  naturally  occupies.  But  the  natural  telling  of 
any  plot  suited  to  the  short  story  will  not  exceed  the 
proper  bounds. 

I  should  not  insist  upon  this  verbal  nicety,  had  the 
laxer  usage  not  misled  many  young  writers  into  stripping 
their  stories  of  every  word  which  did  not  help  to  convey 
the  bald  meaning  of  the  plot.  Many  high  authorities 
have  taught  the  writer  to  strike  from  his  pages  every 
phrase  which  is  not  absolutely  indispensable  to  conveying 
his  idea.  It  is  quite  in  style  to  hold  up  the  parables  of 
the  New  Testament — and  Biblical  narrative  generally — 
as  models  for  the  short  story  writer,  and  not  even  writers 
on  story  technique  have  raised  voice  against  the  custom. 
But  protests  must  be  made,  for  all  such  advice  is  deadly. 
It  rests  upon  the  fatal,  all  too  easy  confusion  of  rhetorical 
compression  with  the  suppression  of  irrelevant  matter, 

^Loc.  cit 


46  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

The  difference  between  these  two  operations  may  be 
illumined  by  a  homely  analogy.  Consider  a  farmer 
baling  hay.  Now,  in  what  does  his  act  consist,  if  not 
simply  in  making  a  dozen  wisps  lie  where  only  one  lay? 
The  hay  he  does  not  change  at  all,  save  in  bulk.  Baled, 
it  is  still  the  same  tunothy  as  before  in  the  far-flung  wind- 
rows. Still,  too,  is  it  peppered,  perhaps,  with  burrs  and 
thistles.  But  now  let  us  suppose  that  the  farmer,  instead 
of  baling  for  market,  wishes  to  keep  his  hay  in  the  mow 
for  his  own  cattle,  which  love  not  at  all  the  burr  and  the 
thistle.  He  picks  out  these  weeds,  for  they  do  not  fit 
in  with  either  his  idea  or  his  cows'  idea  of  pure  1  ^od.  They 
are,  in  short,  quite  irrelevant  to  all  the  purposes  of  normal 
bovine  digestion.  Therefore,  to  suit  these  purposes,  the 
farmer  alters  the  hay.     He  casts  out  his  weeds. 

So  with  the  story  writer.  Having  penned  an  episode, 
he  may  endeavor  to  pack  it  into  smaller  compass,  not  by 
casting  out  anything  of  the  plot,  the  setting,  the  char- 
acter, or  the  interpretation;  but  solely  by  reducing  the 
verbal  bulk.  Thus,  instead  of  'the  golden  orb  of  day',  he 
writes  'the  sun';  and  he  cancels  a  score  of  relative  pro- 
nouns and  definite  articles.  On  the  other  hand,  he  may 
discern  something  in  the  story  idea  and  its  outworking 
which  the  ideals  of  dramatic  narrative  do  not  demand  or 
cannot  tolerate.  And  now  he  does  not  condense;  he  trans- 
forms. He  does  not  pack  the  old  plot  into  smaller  space 
nor  sketch  the  hero  with  fewer  strokes.  He  removes 
dramatic  factors,  inserts  others,  clarifies  the  depicted  traits 
of  human  nature,  intensifies  the  climax,  and  so  on.  And 
all  this,  I  msist  pedantically,  is  not  compression  at  all, 
but  rather  suppression.  And  failure  to  hold  the  two 
operations  clearly  apart  has  precipitated  many  a  begin- 
ning writer  into  disastrous  errors. 

The  gravest  of  these  errors  I  have  alluded  to;  it  is  that 
of  supposing  that  fine  dramatic  effects  are  to  be  produced 


WHAT   IS  A  SHORT  STORY?  47 

by  paring  one's  narrative  language  down  until  it  becomes 
the  baldest  possible  report  of  the  story  facts.  If  only  I 
could  use  as  few  words  as  there  are  in  the  parable  of  the 
prodigal  son— so  thinks  the  beginner — how  swift  and  how 
intense  my  dramatic  action  would  be!  Driven  by  this 
thought,  he  often  abbreviates  the  expression  of  his  idea 
or  else  cuts  out  minor  descriptive  touches.  The  outcome 
is  a  meagre  report,  excellent  newspaper  writing  perhaps, 
but  not  dramatic  narrative  with  a  single  effect.  Like  its 
false  models,  the  Scriptural  fables,  it  may  score  a  point 
vividly,  it  may  state  an  incident  with  fine  accuracy,  and 
yet  be  as  far  removed  from  the  short  story  as  the  sonnet 
is.  And  the  reason,  more  formally  worded,  is  simply 
this:  compression  is  a  purely  rhetorical  operation,  affecting 
only  the  way  the  story  is  communicated  to  the  reader; 
but  the  story  which  is  communicated  is  no  more  affected 
by  that  operation  than  it  is  by  being  translated  from 
English  to  French.  Its  dramatic  value  and  the  single 
effect  would  remain  virtually  constant  throughout  a 
thousand  widely  different  phrasings  of  the  narrative.  To 
produce  that  supreme  effect  of  swift  straightforwardness 
which  most  of  us  find  in  Maupassant  and  a  score  of  later 
authors,  you  must  manipulate,  not  words,  but  the  people 
and  the  events  about  which  you  are  writing.  Character 
traits  must  be  sharply  isolated,  circumstances  ridden  of 
obscurity  and  elaboration,  and  the  compUcation  rushed 
to  its  dramatic  finish.  In  short,  the  matter  of  the  story 
must  be  simple;  and,  being  simple,  it  need  not  be  com- 
pressed at  all. 

When  a  story  needs  compression,  you  may  be  sure  of 
one  of  two  things:  either  the  writer  has  not  been  telling 
his  story,  but  has  been  ambling  far  afield;  or  else  his 
plot  is  not  a  story  plot,  but  of  a  complexity  that  calls  for 
treatment  in  the  form  of  a  novelette  or  novel.  Of  course, 
if  you  choose  to  count  such  mistakes  as  short  stories,  then 


< 


48  SHORT   STORY  WRITING 

you  may  say  that  many  short  stories  demand  compression. 
But  that  would  be  queer  logic.  Compression,  in  this 
sense,  is  not  a  characteristic  of  the  short  story,  but  an 
improvement  of  a  botched  specimen. 

As  for  the  other  alleged  characteristic,  namely,  organiza- 
tion, what  is  it  if  not  the  relation  of  person  to  person 
and  of  event  to  event  in  just  that  manner  which  generates 
a  dramatic  comphcation  and  leads  to  a  climax?  But 
all  this  is  what  we  mean  by  the  plot.  The  more  closely 
we  study  the  latter,  the  clearer  does  it  become  that 
even  the  minor  arrangements  of  dramatic  material  are  all 
fixed  hy  it  and  by  the  exigencies  of  the  single  effect.  Whether 
the  lady  shall  enter  before  or  after  her  lover  has  finished 
reading  the  fatal  letter;  whether  the  wicked  millionaire 
shall  trust  his  valet  or  not;  whether  the  queen  shall  be 
eating  bread  and  honey  in  the  parlor  or  in  the  kitchen — 
all  such  questions  have  to  do  solely  with  the  dramatic 
entanglement  and  the  unified  impression.  Apart  from 
them  there  is  no  organizing  to  be  done. 

JUi^jgonclusion^-then,  contrary  to  all  the  literary  formal- 
ists, a  short  story  may  have  as  many  characters  in  action 
as  the  writer  can  handle,  while  producing  his  single 
effect.  It  may  involve  as  many  events  as  he  is  disposed 
to  incorporate,  provided  only  he  lives  up  to  the  double 
ideal.  And  there  is  no  style  forbidden  him,  so  long  as 
he  uses  it  to  aid  rather  than  to  thwart  that  same  ideal. 
In  spite  of  this  freedom,  he  will  generally  deal  with 
one  only  trait  and  one  episode.  But  let  him  not  mistake 
these  common  formal  limits  for  his  ideal.  Such  a  con- 
fusion is  fatal,  wherever  ideals  are  involved.  In  morals, 
it  leads  to  conventionaUty.  And  it  reduces  art  to  crass 
mechanics. 


EXERCISES  49 


Exercises 

Which  of  the  following  works  are  (1)  dramatic  but 
without  a  unity  of  impression,  (2)  undramatic  but  with 
the  single  effect,  (3)  both  dramatic  and  with  the  single 
effect,  and  (4)  lacking  both  qualities?  Indicate,  as 
precisely  as  you  can,  the  central  idea  and  the  emotional 
quahty  of  each  story. 

Poe,  E.  v.— Hop  Frog. 
Balzac,  Honore — A  Seashore  Drama. 
— La  Grande  Breteche. 
Maupassant,  Guy  de — The  Piece  of  String, 

— Little  Soldier. 
Coppee,  Francois — The  Substitute. 

— My  Friend  Meurtrier. 
Daudet,  Alphonse — The  Siege  of  Berlin. 
Stevenson,  R.  L. — Ollala. 

— Markheim. 
Kipling,  Rudyard — At  the  End  of  the  Passage. 

—They. 
Wharton,  Edith—The  Bolted  Door. 
Dyar,  Muriel  C. — The  Crime  in  Jedidiah  Peehle's  House 
{Harper's,  March,  1912). 

Stockley,  Cynthia — The  Road  to  Tuli  {McClure's,  April, 
1912). 

Norris,  Kathleen — Bridging  the  Years  {American 
Magazine,  May,  1912). 

White,  William  Allen — A  Kansas  "Childe  Roland^' 
(in  the  volume  entitled  In  Our  Town,  Doubleday,  Page, 
1909). 


CHAPTER  II.— WHAT  SHALL  YOU  WRITE 
ABOUT? 

1.  The  importance  of  this  question.  The  beginner 
instinctively  pays  little  heed  to  his  story  themes.  He 
feels  that  he  may  follow  his  own  inclination,  inasmuch 
as  the  range  and  variety  of  subjects  successfully  dealt 
with  by  story  writers  seem  limitless.  This  impression, 
however,  is  dangerously  misleading.  Whether  viewed 
as  a  work  of  art  or  as  a  piece  of  merchandise  for  the 
magazine  market,  the  genre  is  definitely  restricted  in 
more  respects  than  any  other  form  of  fiction.  Whoever 
exceeds  its.  bounds  is  almost  certainly  foredoomed  to 
produce  a  story  that  is  either  ineffective  or  unsalable  or 
both. 

2.  The  theme  is  limited  in  three  directions.  There  are 
many  restraints  upon  the  theme.  The  most  important 
of  these  may  be  classified  under  three  heads: 

a.  Those  set  hy  the  story  form. 

b.  Those  set  by  the  writer's  knowledge  and  beliefs. 

c.  Those  set  by  his  audience. 

•  Not  a  few  restraints  are  merely  commercial;  and  these 
we  shall  consider  in  the  last  chapter  of  this  book. 

a.  Limits  set  by  the  story  form.  Recall  what  the  short 
story  is:  a  dramatic  narrative  with  a  single  effect.  Two 
ideals  are  to  be  reahzed  in  one  form,  and  each  of  them 
is  to  give  its  own  peculiar  determination  to  this  form. 

i.  The  theme  must  yield  s^plot.  Human  conduct  with- 
out the  developing  crisis  will  not  turn  the  trick,  and  the 
most  terrific   crisis  without  the   struggling,   controlling 

50. 


WHAT  SHALL  YOU   WRITE  ABOUT?  51 

force  of  human  nature  at  work  in  it  will  also  fail.  To 
be  persuaded  of  this,  study  that  wonderfully  accurate  and 
sympathetic  medley  of  middle  Western  sketches  by 
William  Allen  White,  entitled  In  Our  Town}  The 
majority  of  these  are  not  short  stories,  either  in  form  or  by 
intent;  but  some  of  them  are,  notably  the  one  entitled 
By  the  Rod  of  His  Wrath.  This  is  a  terrific  picture  of  the 
silent,  crushing  power  of  righteous  public  opinion.  Here 
stands  John  Markley,  who  defied  the  decencies  by  putting 
aside  his  wife  in  middle  age  for  a  brazen  office  girl.  And 
here  stand  John  Markley's  old  friends,  facing  the  moral 
crisis  of  having  to  be  loyal  either  to  him  or  to  his  out- 
raged wife  (and  through  her  to  their  own  professed 
ethics).  The  story  tells  how  they  decided  and 
lived  up  to  their  decision.  Loose  in  its  informality  of 
narrative,  it  is  none  the  less  a  genuine  short  storj^,  fli9.w- 
less  except  for  an  insufficient  dramatic  emphasis  u])on 
some  one  of  the  many  intense  episodes  in  it.  Now  con- 
trast with  it  The  Young  Prince,  in  the  same  collection. 
This,  you  will  instantly  find,  is  only  a  swift  little  biography 
of  a  cub  reporter.  There  lurks  in  it  no  complication, 
tragic  or  comic,  wherein  the  Prince's  loyalty,  his  pride, 
his  sense  of  humor,  his  courage,  or  any  other  moral  trait 
works  out  its  own  salvation.  The  picture  is  true;  amd 
there  is  some  action,  but  not  the  sort  that  makes  dranaa. 

ii.  The  theme,  in  order  to  produce  a  single  effect,  m\ist 
be  one  which  can  be  adequately  handled  within  the  span 
of  a  single  perusal.  It  was  Poe  who  pointed  out  this 
peculiar  limitation.  Lacking  it,  the  novel  ^'depri\es 
itself,  of  course,  of  the  immense  force  derivable  from 
totality.  Worldly  interests  intervening  during  the  pauses 
of    perusal    modify,    annul    or    contract     .      .  the 

impressions  of  the  book.  But  simply  cessation  in  read- 
ing would,   of  itself,   be  sufficient  to  destroy  the  true 

iDoubleday,  Page,  1909. 


52  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

unity/'  This  psj^chological  fact  quite  sharply  defines 
the  pure  external  magnitude  of  the  short  story,  though 
not  nearly  so  much  as  one  might  imagine  from  a  survey 
of  the  magazines.  For  reasons  discussed  elsewhere, 
editors  have  limited  the  story  to  an  ordinary  maximum 
of  8,000  words  (in  England  about  6,000)  and  they 
sometimes  deceive  themselves  into  beheving  that  this 
measures  the  natural  or  proper  size.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
it  bears  only  a  remote  relation  to  the  artistic  (the  psy- 
chological) maximum,  which  is  fixed  entirely  by  the 
particular  theme  and  the  particular  reader.  The  single 
effect  can  be  perfectly  attained  in  a  narrative  of  40,000 
words,  if  only  the  theme  is  sufficiently  obvious  and  simple, 
and  the  reader  is  exceptionally  intelligent.  Henry 
James'  ghost  story,  The  Turn  of  the  Screw,  is  of  that 
length,  and  certainly  a  person  of  concentration  will 
derive  from  it  a  unity  of  impression  no  less  pronounced 
than  that  which  he  gains  from  Poe's  very  brief  Morella. 
No  doubt,  the  gum-chewmg  stenographer  who  devours 
the  literary  offspring  of  Mr.  Robert  W.  Chambers  might 
have  her  difficulties  with  James'  work.  But  this  is 
only  another  way  of  my  saying  that  the  permissible 
length  of  a  story  depends  upon  the  number  of  ideas  and 
effects  which  its  reader  can  easily  carry  in  mind  at  once; 
and  this,  of  course,  varies  with  the  reader's  mental 
equipment.  If  he  happens  to  be  an  AustraHan  bush- 
man,  he  reaches  his  limit  at  the  twentieth  monosyllable. 
And  if  he  is  an  eminent  mathematician,  he  may  read  a 
hundred  full-grown  modern  novels  in  quick  succession 
and  get  from  the  whole  group  only  a  single  effect,  namely 
that  of  tedium. 

This  individual  difference  is  reckoned  with  roughly  by 
magazines  which  cater  to  widely  different  classes  of 
readers.  A  pretty  accurate  index  of  the  pubhc  an 
editor  seeks  is  given  in  the  length  of  stories  he  favors. 


WHAT  SHALL  YOU  WRITE  ABOUT?  53 

If  he  prefers  2,500-word  varieties,  he  is  certainly  appealing 
to  a  shallower  type  of  mind  than  his  colleague  up  the 
street  does  who  handles  5,000-word  goods.  It  is  the 
average  length,  of  course,  that  is  significant;  and  varia- 
tions of  a  few  hundred  words  are  wholly  meaningless. 
But,  with  some  innocuous  exaggeration,  we  might  speak 
of  the  2,000-word  reader,  the  4,000-word  reader,  the 
8,000-word  reader,  and  the  15,000-word  reader.  Now, 
it  is  the  likings  and  capacities  of  the  first  three  species 
which  define  the  practical  limits  of  most  contemporary 
stories. 

ii.  This  8,000-word  limit  sets  three  restrictions  upon 
the  theme.     It  excludes  all  subjects  which  involve: 

a.  An  intricate  plot, 

p.  Elaborate  staging,  and- 

y.  Detailed  interpretation. 

a.  Intricacy.  No  theme  can  be  used  whose  plot  con- 
tains more  features  and  complications  than  can  be  clearly 
presented  and  worked  through  within  the  space  limit 
above  mentioned.  And  conversely,  what  can  be  adequately 
depicted  in  less  than  2,000  words  is  almost  certain  to  be 
no  dramatic  narrative,  and  hence  no  short  story.  For 
a  dramatic  narrative  involves  a  large  number  of  factors, 
the  baldest  account  of  which  generally  consumes  more 
than  that  number  of  words. 

p.  Staging.  This  is  the  least  important  and  most 
plastic  of  the  restrictions.  By  the  staging  is  meant  that 
much  of  the  total  setting  which  is  actually  presented  in 
detail  to  the  reader.  Often  the  setting  is  much  fuller  than 
the  staging;  just  as  in  the  early  drama,  where  the  setting, 
say  a  forest  in  Warwickshire,  was  represented  in  the 
staging  by  a  single  plucked  bough,  and  a  silent  character 
on  the  scene  symbolized  by  a  cloak  flung  over  a  stick 
propped  uplin  a  corner.    As  with  plays^  so  with  short 


X, 


54  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

stories.  Some  of  them  demand  very  little  explicit  develop- 
ment of  the  scenic  circumstances  under  which  their 
plots  grow,  while  others,  lik^'^WurMmh,  owe  their  very 
life  to  the  vivid  fulness  of  the  environing  conditions. 
Now,  it  is  only  with  reference  to  these  latter  themes  that 
staging  becomes  a  serious  problem;  and,  as  they  are  not 
very  common,  the  student  need  not  pay  much  attention 
to  the  difficulty  they  raise.  Let  him  learn  only  the 
two  general  rules  by  which  they  are  rejected: 

A.  A  theme  is  unfit  for  a  short  story  if  its  plot  calls  for  a 
aging  so  elaborate  that  there  remains  for  the  development 

of  the  dramatic  narrative  not  space  enough  within  the  as- 
signed limits  of  the  story's  total  length. 

B.  A  theme  is  unfit  also  if  its  plot  calls  for  the  extensive 
staging  of  situations  which  interrupt  the  dramatic  narrative. 

For  further  comment  on  this  topic  see  the  chapter  on 
integrative  intensifiers. 

y.  Interpretation.  The  equivocation  in  this  term  must 
be  cleared  away  before  we  can  discuss  the  point  here  to 
be  made.  By  'interpretation'  artists  frequently  mean 
their  own  personal  rendering  of  an  idea  or  a  scene  or  a 
play.  When,  for  instance,  an  actor  gives  his  interpreta- 
tion of  Hamlet,  he  represents  the  dismal  Dane,  not  as 
Hamlet  himself  may  have  been,  nor  yet  as  Shakespeare 
may  have  conceived  him,  but  as  the  player  himself  be- 
lieves the  character  is  most  truly  or  most  dramatically 
exhibited.  Again,  a  writer  is  said  to  interpret  New  York 
when  he  gives  you  a  picture  of  the  town  as  he  sees  it. 
Thus,  in  The  Claws  of  the  Tiger,  Gouverneur  Morris  offers 
a  powerful  interpretation  of  the  life-wrecking  power  and 
unspeakable  vice  of  Tammany  Hall. 

Now  this  meaning  of  'interpretation'  ought  to  be  dis- 
carded; and  for  the  excellent  reason  that,  as  soon  as  you 
apply  it  consistently,  you  strip  it  of  significance.  Any 
and  every  account  becomes  an  interpretation.     A  private 


WHAT   SHALL  YOU  WRITE  ABOUT?  55 

letter  sketching  the  ravages  of  mumps  in  the  family  is 
an  interpretation.  A  morsel  of  gossip  about  the  rector's 
cook  eloping  with  the  ice  man  is  interpretation.  For 
does  not  the  reporter  give  you  a  picture  of  affairs  as  he 
perceives  them?  And  does  he  not  present  them  in  the 
form  he  thinks  best?  He  assuredly  does.  But  in  so  doing 
he  does  not  rise  above  the  artistic  level  of  a  camera;  for 
the  camera  too  renders  the  landscape  as  it  appears  from 
its  own  private  point  of  view  and  as  sensed  by  a  film  of 
peculiar  chemical  make-up.  Therefore,  to  speak  of 
interpreting  a  story  theme,  in  this  loose  sense,  is  to 
speak  of  nothing  special.  You  do  not  graze  any  technical 
problem  of  artistic  expression. 

The  word  has,  however,  another  and  a  deeper  meaning. 
To  discern  the  significance  of  something,  to  clarify  that 
which  is  obscure,  to  construe  something  which  one's 
audience  is  in  doubt  about;  all  that  is  genuine  interpreta- 
tion. It  is  a  deliberate  intellectual  enterprise.  Its 
purpose  may  not  be  the  preacher's;  it  may  be  more  akin 
to  the  scientist's.  To  finish  with  a  Q.  E.  D.,  like  Euclid, 
and  to  let  the  reader  use  the  inference  as  he  will,  may 
be  the  author's  one  desire.  And,  when  it  is,  the  story 
gains  mightily.  There  are  few  specimens  of  truly  great 
stories  which  are  wholly  devoid  of  this  quasi-scientific 
demonstration.  Markheim  conspicuously  proves  that 
there  is  always  a  way  of  checking  a  wicked  habit,  albeit 
a  desperate  way.  Moonlight  proves  dramatically  that, 
to  sympathize  with  an  emotion,  one  must  experience  it  or 
something  like  it.  Howells'  A  Circle  in  the  Water  proves 
in  its  own  style  that  love  alone  arrests  the  consequences 
of  wrong.  And  so  on,  with  only  occasional  exceptions, 
unless  we  take  into  account  simple  love  and  adventure 
stories.  It  is  pretty  clear  that,  though  interpretation  is 
not  essential  to  the  short  story,  it  elevates  and  glorifies  the 
form  as  nothing  else  can. 


56  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

So  defined,  the  limitations  under  which  interpretation 
suffers  in  the  short  story  form  are  apparent.  And  the  first 
of  these  is  the  one  which  Brunetiere  had  in  mind  when  he 
wrote  that  the  theme  of  the  short  story  must  be  'socially 
insignificant'.  This  phrase  is  inexact  and  needlessly  damn- 
ing, but  it  does  point  toward  a  profound  distinction  be- 
tween short  story  and  novel.  There  are  many  human 
truths  which  resemble  Euclid's  first  theorems  in  that 
they  are  simple,  fundamental,  and  proved  in  a  few 
words.  But  there  are  many  more  which  can  be  compared 
only  with  the  propositions  of  integral  calculus;  for  they 
are  accessible  only  through  a  labyrinth  of  details.  It 
is  a  simple  truth  that  public  opinion  can,  without  force 
or  fury,  crush  even  a  rich  and  powerful  man  who  flouts 
it.  It  is  a  very  obscure  and  intricate  proposition  that 
will  tell  the  whole  truth  about  the  rights  of  a  man  to 
divorce  a  wife  he  is  weary  of.  Some  very  intelligent 
people  will  say,  in  great  heat,  that  the  man  has  no  right; 
and  other  no  less  intelligent  people  will  assert  vehemently 
that  it  is  criminal  to  compel  anybody  to  remain  wedded 
against  his  or  her  wish.  All  of  which  proves  that  there 
are  two  sides  to  the  question,  and  maybe  twenty,  and 
that  nobody  quite  understands  them  all.  Now  the 
former  truth,  about  the  still  power  of  the  public,  can  be 
comprehended  within  the  compass  of  a  few  thousand 
words;  hence  it  is  suited  to  the  story  form,  and  White  has 
successfully  employed  it  thus  in  By  the  Rod  of  His  Wrath. 
But  the  second  truth  has  not  yet  been  demonstrated 
conclusively  even  in  the  longest  novel;  and  it  may  never 
be,  so  multitudinous  are  the  human  interests  which 
play  into  the  problem  of  divorce,  and  so  delicate  is  their 
weighing.  Reason  enough,  then,  for  forbidding  it  to  the 
story  writer!  And  so,  though  it  is  raised  in  the  reader's 
mind  by  White's  story.  White  does  not  develop  it  at 
all. 


WHAT  SHALL  YOU  WRITE  ABOUT?  57 

The  defect  in  Brunetiere's  verdict  now  appears.  It  is 
not  the  social  insignificance  of  John  Markley's  fate  that 
led  White  to  depict  it  in  a  short  story  instead  of  in  a 
novel.  Surely,  few  crises  are  of  deeper  importance  to 
the  individual  and  of  wider  consequence  -to  the  world 
than  that  which  the  village  faced  when  Markley  cast  off 
his  wife.  What  is  there  anywhere  in  Balzac  or  Thackeray 
that  more  deeply  concerns  society?  Would  the  author 
have  given  us  a  false  notion  of  its  importance,  had  he 
expanded  the  story  of  it  into  a  novel?  By  no  means. 
Well  then,  why  did  he  not  make  a  novel  of  it?  Simply 
because  it  could  be  perfectly  demonstrated  in  a  short 
story.  When  all  is  said  and  done,  it  is  the  very  same 
reason  that  dissuaded  Euclid  from  expanding  his  famous 
proposition  about  the  angles  of  a  triangle  into  a  100,000- 
word  volume.  A  hundred  and  odd  words  did  the  business 
to  perfection;  and  Euclid  was  too  wise  to  exceed  perfec- 
tion. He  was  not  influenced  by  the  fact  that  the  truth 
about  the  triangle  is  of  prodigious  social  importance. 
Had  he  done  so;  had  he  made  the  telling  of  the  story 
commensurate  with  the  value  of  the  truth  in  it,  forty 
thick  tomes  would  not  have  contained  it. 

But,  happily  for  the  human  race,  the  value  of  what  men 
have  to  say  has  not  the  slightest  connection  with  the 
fulness  of  its  recounting.  A  truth,  whether  of  geometry 
or  of  constitutional  law  or  of  every-day  human  nature, 
whether  syllogistically  or  dramatically  phrased,  whether 
precious  or  trivial,  fixes  its  own  number  of  words  pretty 
definitely.  If  it  is  intricate,  it  will  demand  a  great  array 
of  language;  if  simple,  one  sentence  may  make  it  as  clear 
as  the  sun  in  a  cloudless  sky.  Here  is,  at  bottom,  no 
mystery  of  art  or  logic;  it  is  only  the  primitive  virtue  of 
straightforward  speech. 

This  virtue  imposes  a  restraint  upon  the  interpretations 
which  the  short  story  writer  may  indulge  in;  a  restraint, 


58  SHORT   STORY   WRITING 

by  the  way,  which  few  beginners  heed  or,  heeding,  endure 
with  patience.     It  is  this: 

Do  not  attempt  to  interpret  any  matter  which  society 
finds  problematic  today 

If  the  human  race  has  not  yet  found  a  clear  answer  to  a 
question  of  social  consequence,  it  is  because  the  question 
is  entangled  and  dark,  or  at  least  two-sided.  And  what- 
ever is  so  cannot  be  presented  in  such  a  manner  as  to 
produce  that  single  effect  which  is  the  inalienable  charm 
and  right  of  the  short  story. 

b.  The  theme  as  limited  by  the  writer^s  knowledge  and 
beliefs.  Before  dipping  into  this  matter,  the  reader  wall 
kindly  call  to  mind  that  we  are  now  considering  the 
artistic  ideals  of  the  short  story,  not  the  commercial 
possibilities.  Were  he  to  overlook  this  fact,  he  would  be 
perplexed  by  the  two  rules  now  to  be  framed,  the  first  of 
which  is: 

i.  The  writer  must  possess  genuine  knowledge  of  the  matter 
actually  employed  in  the  dramatic  narrative;  but  need  not 
know  any  more. 

This  rule  meets  with  scant  reverence.  A  horde  of 
stories  favored  by  editors  exhibit  appalling  ignorance, 
not  only  of  elementary  facts  about  human  nature  but  even 
about  the  habits  and  customs  of  the  times,  places,  and 
social  castes  about  whom  the  authors  fabulate.^  And  a 
much  larger  multitude  of  stories  give  evidence  that  their 
authors,  after  taking  pen  in  hand,  have  asked  some  Public 
Library  assistant  about  the  flora  and  fauna  of  the  Tahiti 
Islands,  and  scanned  Baedeker  to  find  out  whether  Rus- 
sians drink  vodka  through  a  straw.  But  all  this  only  goes 
to  show  what  everybody  knows,  namely  that,  within  cer- 

1  In  fairness  to  editors,  it  should  be  added  that  the  better  maga- 
zines are  admitting  fewer  stories  of  this  sort  than  they  did  twenty- 
five  years  ago.  But  within  the  past  twelvemonth  at  least  half  a 
dozen  absurdities  have  been  published. 


WHAT   SHALL  YOU  WRITE  ABOUT?  59 

tain  bounds,  gold-brick  literature  is  a  marketable  commod- 
ity, no  less  than  gold-brick  stocks  and  gold-brick  religion 
are.  Also,  it  goes  to  show  that  few  people  can  write  good 
stories,  and  of  those  who  can  still  fewer  can  pour  them 
forth  on  contract,  month  in,  month  out.  And  so  the 
wretched  editors — Heaven  comfort  them! — have  to  take 
what  they  can  get. 

The  other  clause  in  the  rule  is  equally  ignored.  Even 
experienced  writers  often  wade  through  volumes  and 
volumes  of  sociological  statistics,  as  a  preliminary  to 
contriving  a  story,  let  us  say,  about  a  Madison  Street 
sweatshop.  And  I  have  heard  promising  young  writers 
sigh,  almost  tearfully,  that  they  could  never  hope  to 
write  psychological  character  stories  like  James'  be- 
cause the  poor  dears  had  not  mastered  the  other  James' 
psychology. 

Now,  this  despair  is  a  baseless  superstition.  The  truth 
is,  most  facts  that  are  important  to  scientists  are  only  dis- 
tantly connected  with  those  which  help  to  make  a  situation 
dramatic.  These  latter  are  exclusively  those  which 
the  persons  in  the  dramatic  situation  are  directly  aware  of. 
The  sweater's  kicks  and  curses,  the  garlicky  air,  the  flat, 
high  voice  from  the  top  of  a  sick  workman's  filling  lungs, 
the  twenty  cents  clipped  off  the  week's  pay  for  the  crooked 
stitching, — these  are  the  raw  material  of  sweatshop  drama. 
For  it  is  they  that  men  perceive,  they  that  provoke  to 
wrath,  they  that  move  victims  to  slay  or  to  fling  them- 
selves from  bridges.  The  writer  familiar  with  all  such 
factors  may  dispense  with  the  others. 

For  this  reason,  the  writer  in  search  of  material  must 
turn,  not  to  libraries  nor  to  schools  and  laboratories,  but 
to  intimate  every-day  affairs.  Other  more  dignified 
sources  of  truth  will  give  him  his  bearings  in  the  midst  of 
life  and  sharpen  his  eyes  toward  good  and  evil.     But  never 


60  SHORT  STORY   WRITING 

can  they  teach  him  how  to  make  his  characters  hfe-Hke, 
his  situations  real,  and  his  chmaxes  tense. 

There  remains  a  second  limiting  rule : 

ii.  The  writer  is  free  to  develop  a  theme  which  he  does  not 
believe.  But  he  must  understand  how  and  why  the  char- 
acters in  the  story  feel  and  act  as  they  do.  And  he  must 
portray  the  reasons  and  causes  of  their  acts  sympathetically. 
If  he  cannot,  he  must  give  up  the  theme. 

This  would  scarcely  be  worth  mentioning,  but  for  tjie 
loose  talk  about  'sincerity'  and  'earnestness'  which  many 
excellent  critics,  and  even  writers,  are  wont  to  indulge 
in.  We  have  heard  Chesterton  assuring  us  that  good 
fiction  comes  only  from  doctrinaires;  and  other  milder  ex- 
aggerators  are  constantly  proclaiming  that  even  the  lightest 
tale,  in  order  to  be  good  art,  must  'have  a  message', 
or  'point  a  moral',  or  come  from  the  author's  soul.  And 
so,  every  season  under  such  promptings,  comes  a  host 
of  fresh  learners  striving  to  pack  their  intensest  beliefs 
into  little  stories.  To  forestall  the  harmful  consequences 
of  their  misunderstanding,  let  them  dwell  upon  the 
vast,  conspicuous  difference  between  belief  (or  moral  earnest- 
ness) and  sympathetic  imagination. 

This  difference  must  be  apparent  to  anybody  who 
dreams  vividly  or  retains  some  shred  of  early  youth's 
power  of  fantasy.  The  mind  so  constituted  perceives 
the  unreal  as  real  and  the  preposterous  as  plausible. 
While  the  spell  lasts,  nothing  mars  the  perfect  reality  of 
its  presentments.  Fiends,  abysses,  diamonds  like  hens' 
eggs,  the  men  of  Mars, — they  are  all,  for  the  swift  instant, 
just  what  they  seem  to  be.  Reason,  paralyzed  for  the 
nonce,  does  not  challenge  their  status;  nor  does  the  acid  of 
common  sense  eat  into  their  tenuous  stuff.  And  so,  in 
one  sense,  they  convince  us,  and  we  believe  in  them. 

But  'thej^  are  not  convincing  in  the  more  proper  mean- 
ing of  the  word.     They  do  not  lay  hold  of  us  as  the  ideas 


WHAT  SHALL  YOU  WRITE  ABOUT?  61 

in  Heretics  lay  hold  of  Chesterton,  or  as  those  in  Widowers' 
Houses  master  Bernard  Shaw.  They  are  not  faiths  which 
grow  out  of  life  and,  in  turn,  regulate  it;  they  merely 
possess  such  coherence  and  vivacity  that,  while  we  con- 
template them  by  themselves,  we  cannot  doubt  them.  As 
soon  as  we  withdraw  from  their  little  sphere  and  reason 
about  them,  they  lose  their  power  over  us.  Consider,  for 
instance,  the  tales  of  Poe.  What  is  there  in  The  Fall  of 
the  House  of  Usher  that  one  could  believe  with  a  doctrin- 
aire's fine  frenzy?  Absolutely  nothing.  The  whole  som- 
bre creation  is  a  picture,  nothing  more.  But  Poe  dreamed 
it  so  clearly,  and  the  disasters  of  it  hang  together  in  every 
minute  detail  so  organically  that  the  catastrophe  possesses 
all  the  fleeting  persuasiveness  of  a  nightmare.  While  you 
read  it,  you  inhabit  a  strange  land.  And  the  emotions 
which  this,  your  bewildering  translation,  induce  are  all 
that  you  ask  of  the  story  teller.  If  he  can  produce  this 
illusion  of  reality,  you  do  not  care  what  he  believes  per- 
sonally about  anything. 

There  is  no  denying  that  a  story  shaped  by  some  lofty 
purpose  often  rises  to  heights  attained  by  no  idle  play 
of  the  imagination.  Not  even  the  hilarity  of  an  O.  Henry 
nor  his  smother  of  puns  mitigates  the  grim  earnestness  of 
An  Unfinished  Story;  and  few  of  his  more  light-hearted 
tales  linger  in  the  memory  as  does  this  attack  upon  the 
employer  who  underpays  his  shop-girls.  And  yet,  when  all 
is  said,  moral  earnestness  is  only  a  strengthener,  and 
high  purposes  are  seven-league  boots,  at  best,  in  the 
realm  of  the  story  writer.  They  improve,  but  they  do 
not  create.  They  intensify,  but  they  do  not  furnish  the 
material  of  brief  fiction.  Excellent  they  are,  but  not 
essential.  In  proof  of  this,  many  an  author  can  testify 
that  some  of  his  most  artistic,  most  successful  works 
have  developed  themes  which  he  disliked,  characters  whom 
he  scorned,  and  ideas  which  he  could  not  seriously  enter- 


k 


62  '  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

tain.  I  have  been  told  that  there  is  a  story  writer  of 
renown  who  deUberately  shelves  every  plot  of  his  which 
stirs  him  deeply  in  a  serious  way.  And  another  echoes 
what  Frohman  says  of  the  plays  he  reads:  ''Every  one  that 
I  like  personally  is  sure  to  fail." 

c.  The  theme  as  limited  by  the  reader. 

It  is  difficult  to  separate  the  artistic  restrictions  from 
the  commercial,  in  this  case.  For  what  a  reader  likes  he 
will  buy,  and  what  he  dislikes  he  will  leave  on  the  book- 
stand. Furthermore,  he  is  much  more  interested  in  the 
topic  of  a  book  than  in  its  style  or  the  opinion  it  voices  or 
the  kinds  of  people  appearing  in  it.  His  first  decisive 
query  is  this:  What  does  the  story  narrate,  adventure 
or  romance  or  a  humorous  situation  or  the  inner  life  of  a 
character?  And  if  he  wishes  catch-breath  deviltry,  no 
amount  of  fine  speech  or  pretty  turns  will  make  a  simple 
love  story  attractive  to  him.  For  this  reason,  his  influence 
will  be  discussed  in  the  chapter  on  the  business  of  story 
writing.  He  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  art  of  writing, 
but  only  with  the  art  of  selling  the  written. 

S.  Available  story  material.  Thus  far  we  have  been  in- 
dicating what  is  not  good  story  stuff.  It  is  now  time  to 
ask  what  is  good. 

a.  Theme.  There  is  no  positive  quality  which  marks 
the  available  theme.  You  may,  if  you  choose,  show 
dramatically  that  black  is  white,  or  that  women  should 
vote,  or  that  virtue  is  an  illusion,  or  that  love  is  a  lovely 
thing,  or  that  lone  widows  ought  never  buy  mining  stock, 
or  that  things  as  they  are  aren't  as  they  should  be,  or 
anjrthing  else.  In  brief,  all  we  can  say  is  that  the  theme 
may  be  whatever  permits  of  dramatic  development  with  a 
single  effect.  But  this  tells  nothing  about  the  particular 
content  and  quality  of  the  idea. 

b.  Plot.  Here  we  begin  to  see  light,  and  under  it  the 
story  material  shows  up  pretty  definite.     Almost  every 


WHAT  SHALL  YOU  WRITE  ABOUT?  63 

experienced  reader  senses — at  least  vaguely — the  quality 
which  makes  ideas  and  incidents  and  characters  good  for 
dramatic  narrative.  This  quality  has  many  names: 
one  is  ^ human  interest',  another  is  'emotional  intensity*, 
a  third  'truth  about  human  nature',  and  a  fourth  'char- 
acter revelation'.  But  these  are  all  too  hazy,  and  the 
last  is  certainly  too  narrow.  The  first  points  at  the  truth 
but  does  not  attain  it.  Editors  assure  us  that  'human 
interest'  is  the  flavor  and  perfume  of  every  excellent 
story.  But  what  is  human  interest?  How  shall  we  know 
it  when  we  meet  it?  Has  it  a  formula,  that  the  tyro  of 
Grub  Street  may  make  it  to  order?  Profound  silence  in 
editorial  offices!  And  the  literary  critics  are  not  much 
noisier.  The  truth  is,  no  clear  analysis  of  this  nebulous 
literary  virtue  has  been  rendered.  But  the  way  has 
been  cleared  by  contemporary  psychologists.  Their 
studies  of  attention  and  interest  are  suggestive. 

c.  Interest.  Between  simple  attention  and  interest 
stretches  a  wide  gulf.  A  person  attends  to  things  more 
or  less  passively.  A  loud  noise,  a  flash  of  light,  a  strange 
voice,  indeed  almost  anything  different  from  what  we 
happen  to  be  noticing  at  the  moment,  will  draw  our  minds 
in  that  pecuhar  way  which  is  called  attending.  Not  so, 
however,  do  things  compel  us  to  be  interested  in  them. 
The  direction  of  our  interest  is  set  largely  by  our  own 
wills  and  our  beliefs.  We  give  attention,  but  we  take 
interest.  In  the  first  case  there  is  a  yielding,  in  the 
second  a  seizing.  When  interested  in  something,  we  lay 
hold  of  its  features  and  we  actively  think  about  them,  in 
some  of  their  hearings.  Are  you  interested  in  the  ven- 
tures of  a  slack-wire  artist?  Then  you  surely  do  more 
than  follow  his  shaking  march  across  the  stage.  You 
wander  how  he  will  manage  to  keep  his  balance  after 
dropping  his  pole.  You  try  to  figure  out  what  move  he 
will  make  next.     You  judge  his  chances  of  breaking  a  leg. 


64  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

You  reflect  upon  the  patience  and  skill  his  feats  represent. 
In  short,  you  think  hard.  And  so  it  is  with  great  affairs, 
too.  If  you  take  interest,  say,  in  immigration  or  in 
divorce  or  in  Roosevelt,  you  do  not  merely  attend  as  you 
might  to  the  pop  of  a  toy  pistol.  You  think,  think,^  think 
about  causes  and  consequences,  about  the  perils  and  the 
benefits,  about  the  right  and  the  wrong  of  it  all.  Here 
we  have  the  infallible  psychological  mark  of  'human  in- 
terest'; the  interesting  thing  is  the  thing  which  provokes 
thought. 

d.  What  provokes  thought?  This  query  arises  at  once. 
For,  unless  it  is  answered,  the  above  description  will  not 
enlighten  us  much.  Fortunately,  though,  our  pragmatic 
philosophers  have  hit  upon  its  solution.  Thought  is 
provoked  by  any  situation  from  which  our  instincts  and  our 
established  habits  do  not  automatically  deliver  us.  It 
offers  us  a  new  critical  weapon  which  cleanly  cuts  the 
fit  from  the  unfit  material  of  artistic  fiction.  But  let  us 
first  inspect  the  fact  itself. 

Most  people  think  only  when  they  have  to.  This 
incontestable  fact  you  may  utter  with  a  cynical  aieer, 
if  you  have  not  reflected  upon  it.  But  if  you  have,  you 
know  that  the  arrangement  is  not  so  bad  as  it  sounds.  In- 
deed, it  is  pretty  useful,  taken  by  and  large.  It  is  not 
ideal,  to  be  sure;  in  a  perfectly  appointed  world  we 
should  never  think  at  all  but  should  only  enjoy  Hfe,  solving 
/  all  .problems  mechanically,  as  we  dislodge  dust  from  the 
eyes  and  digest  our  food.  Seeing  the  universe  is  what  it 
is,  though,  a  place  full  of  change  and  entanglements,  so 
complex  that  no  machinery,  however  intricate  and  well 
fashioned,  could  do  the  right  thing  always  at  the  right 
time,  this  painful  and  difficult  activity  of  thinking  must 
be  invoked.  Whatsoever  we  can  manage  through  some 
other  agency  we  do  so  manage.  And,  if  thinking  is  im- 
perative for  a  while,  we  make  that  while  as  brief  as  possi- 


WHAT  SHALL  YOU  WRITE  ABOUT?  65 

ble.  The  baby  thinks  in  learning  to  walk,  but  as  soon  as 
his  feet  move  surely  he  refrains  from  cogitation.  He 
thinks  over  his  speech,  too,  but  quickly  he  outgrows  that, 
transforming  discourse  from  an  intellectual  performance 
to  a  reflex  habit.  And  he  never  thinks  about  the  order 
and  choice  of  words  again,  unless  they  give  rise  to  some 
new,  unforeseen  perplexity;  as,  for  instance,  they  might, 
were  he  suddenly  afflicted  with  stammering  or  stage 
fright.  This  is  no  scandal,  it  is  a  great  convenience. 
Thanks  to  it,  men  are  able  to  concern  themselves  with 
fresh  enterprises  and  hence  to  progress.  Indeed,  civiliza- 
tion is  a  titanic  nnionument  to  thoughtlessness,  no  less  than 
to  thought.  The  supreme  triumph  of  mind  is  to  di'spense 
with  itself.  For  what  would  intellect  avail  us,  if  we 
could  not  withdraw  it  from  action  in  all  the  habitual  en- 
counters of  daily  life?  Suppose  we  had  to  think  how 
to  lace  our  shoes  and  steer  sandwiches  to  our  mouths! 
And  what  if  we  had  to  set  going  the  machinery  of 
Aristotle's  logic  whenever  we  sought  to  say  ''Good 
morning"! 

e.  The  (hought-provoking  situation  is  what  we  call  a 
problem.  This  is  in  accord  with  common  usage,  and  also 
with  philosophy.  Its  implication  carries  us  far  from 
many  current  theories  about  fiction.  For  it  means 
that  'human  interest  is  confined  to  problems,  and  that 
every  good  story  is  a  problem  story.  Pretty  soon  we  shall 
have  to  explain  what  a  problem  story  is  and  incidentally 
clear  away  the  easy  but  false  supposition  that  it  deals 
with  only  the  acute  and  ultimate  social  issues,  as  the 
'problem  play'  does.  For  the  moment,  though,  let  us 
draw  another  distinction. 

Not  every  problem  awakens  the  kind  of  human  interest 
which  editors  sigh  for.  A  situation  provoking  thought  is 
not  inevitably  suitable  for  fiction.  If  it  were,  all  the 
innumerable  puzzles  of  science  and  politics  and  huck- 


66  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

sterdom  would  fall  within  its  domain;  yea,  and  even  the 
questions  the  Walrus  put  to  the  Carpenter.  Is  a  butterfly 
a  moth,  and  if  not,  why  not?  There  you  have  matter 
calling  for  some  exercise  of  intellect;  and  yet  it  is  obvi- 
ously not  to  be  threshed  out  by  O.  Henry  or  Henry  James. 
Although  it  awakens  human  interest,  it  is  incompatible 
with  the  ideals  of  the  short  story.  For  it  is  not  intrinsically 
dramatic.  This  fact  at  once  suggests  that  there  are 
several  kinds  of  thought-provoking  situations,  and 
that  only  certain  of  these  yield  to  the  story  teller's 
art. 

f .  Three  varieties  of  situations.  A  little  reflection  will 
show  that  situations  may  be  classified  with  respect  to  the 
manner  of  managing  them.  Three  types  thereupon 
appear: 

-i.  Those  which  can  be  managed  by  action  alone. 
Thus,  the  dodging  of  a  missile;  rebuffing  a  person  who 
seeks  to  tempt  you  with  some  outrageous  offer;  grasping  a 
friend's  arm,  as  he  slips  on  an  icy  sidewalk.  In  such 
cases  you  do  not  stop  to  think;  you  simply  'do  the  right 
thing'. 

ii.  Situations  which  can  be  managed  with  pure  thought 
alone.  For  instance,  multiplying  56  by  9;  or  discovering 
the  motives  of  a  supposed  friend  who  has  grossly  in- 
sulted you;  or  laying  bare  a  conspiracy,  by  inference  from, 
a  chance  remark  you  overhear  in  the  street  car. 

iii.  Situations  which  can  be  managed  only  by  thought 
and  some  consequent  personal  action.^    Thus,  in  A  Coward, 

^  Were  this  a  book  on  the  psychology  of  conduct,  I  should  de- 
scribe a  fourth  situation,  namely  that  which  can  be  managed  only 
by  thinking  aud  simultaneous  action.  Here  the  action  is  not  the 
consequence  of  prior  thinking,  as  it  is  in  the  dramatic  situation; 
rather  is  it  an  aid  in  thinking.  Of  this  sort  is  all  experiment.  One 
reflects  up  to  a  certain  point;  then  does  something  to  test  his  pro- 
visional inferences  or  else  to  clarify  the  matter  of  the  problem;  and 


WHAT   SHALL  YOU  WRITE  ABOUT?  67 

the  predicament  into  which  Maupassant  brings  the  vis- 
count; the  unhappy  man  must  first  think  a  long  time, 
but  thinking  alone  will  ftot  solve  his  difficulty.  Thought 
must  be  followed  by  action.  And  so  too  in  every  dramatic 
situation.  Here  we  have  come  upon  the  mark  of  the 
species. 

g.  The  third  type  of  situation  fulfills  only  one  ideal  of  the 
^hort  story.  In  the  primitive  sense  of  the  words,  this  kind 
of  situation  gives  rise  to  the  behavior  called  dramatic. 
Certainly  the  thinking  it  evokes  displays  human  nature 
somehow,  and  certainly  too  the  action  that  grows  out  of 
that  thinking  is  'in  character\  Nevertheless,  one  might 
easily  suggest  a  host  of  cases  possessing  these  features 
and  yet  being  too  dull  and  colorless  for  fictional  purposes. 
To  give  an  extreme  sample:  a  cook  might  inadvertently 
pepper  a  stew  with  roach  powder  three  minutes  before 
family  and  guests  were  to  dine.  There's  a  situation  that 
ought  to  stir  any  ambitious  culinary  champion  to  deep 
thought.  Cook  might  ponder  desperately,  torn  be- 
tween the  impulse  to  fly  into  the  Plutonian  night  and  the 
impulse  to  open  a  can  of  soused  mackerel  and  serve  it  in 
place  of  the  wrecked  stew.  In  the  end,  the  fish  might 
triumph  over  the  flight;  cook  would  clutch  the  can-opener 
desperately  and  march  into  the  pantry.  There  you  find 
all  the  elements  of  mere  drama,  and  yet  not  the  plot  of  even 
a  weak  short  story.  The  trouble  with  it  is  the  sharp  de- 
cline in  the  last  act.  You  may  be  moderately  excited  by 
the  fatal  dose  of  roach  powder.  You  may  wonder  poig- 
nantly over  the  prospects  of  cook's  blasted  reputation  or 
over  the  fate  of  the  diners,  if  cook  serves  the  stew.  But, 
the  minute  you  learn  that  mackerel  are  on  hand  to  rescue 

so  on,  with  constant  interplay.  For  psychological  and  ethical 
purposes  it  is  important  to  hold  this  variety  of  situation  apart. 
But  the  story  writer  need  not  concern  himself  with  it,  beyond  notic- 
ing its  existence. 


68  SHORT   STORY   WRITING 

cook  from  ignominy  and  the  diners  from  hospital,  the 
tension  is  over.  You  know  that  the  finish  will  be  calm, 
easy,  and  cheerful.  In  other  Words,  there  is  one  effect 
in  the  crucial  situation  of  the  episode,  and  another  effect 
in  the  denouement;  and  this  violates  the  second  ideal  of  the 
short  story. 

h.  For  the  purposes  of  the  short  story,  the  complica- 
tion, the  crisis,  and  the  denouement  must  he  of  either  equal 
or  ascending  effectiveness.  Nothing  can  be  more  deadly 
than  the  declining  effect.  It  is  even  worse  than 
a  story  which  is  dull  throughout,  for  it  awakens  in  you 
hopes  of  a  thrilling  end  and  then  disappoints  you.  Few 
will  hesitate  to  confirm  this  fact,  and  yet  many  persist 
in  ignoring  it  when  they  turn  to  write  fiction.  I  am  con- 
tinually amazed  at  the  scant  attention  given  by  fairly  ca- 
pable authors  to  the  sustained  finish.  They  conjure  up 
excellent  dramatic  situations  and  vigorous,  sharply  ac- 
centuated characters,  but  halt  as  soon  as  they  have  done 
that  much.  It  may  be  that  they  fancy  their 
heroines  can  work  out  their  own  salvation  and  at  the 
same  stroke  please  the  reader.  At  any  rate,  this  delusion 
has  been  fostered  and  popularized  by  a  literary  school 
which  some  are  pleased  to  miscall  'psychological  realism'. 
The  ideal  of  this  school  is  to  depict  the  stream  of  con- 
sciousness in  its  natural  flow  across  a  natural  world. 
Given  a  certain  character,  what  must  he  do  in  a  certain 
situation?  What  impulses,  feehngs,  or  prejudices  will 
dominate  his  conduct?  It  is,  they  say,  the  artist's  task  to 
answer  this  question  pictorially.  As  Howells  puts  it: 
"the  true  plot  comes  out  of  the  character;  that  is,  the  man 
does  not  result  from  the  things  he  does,  but  the  things  he 
does  result  from  the  man,  and  so  plot  comes  out  of  charac- 
ter, plot  aforethought  does  not  characterize".  Or,  as  one 
might  say  a  little  more  exactly,  the  deliberate  choice  of  a 


WHAT  SHALL  YOU  WRITE  ABOUT?  69 

man  in  a  given  situation  is  the  stuff  of  which  a  good 
story  must  be  made. 

Now,  for  argument's  sake,  we  might  grant  this  much 
(though  we  deny  it  as  a  matter  of  fact);  and  yet  we 
should  have  to  repudiate  the  all  too  common  inference 
from  it,  that  all  cases  of  a  person  choosing  and  shaping  his 
conduct  will  serve  the  fictionist.  No  logic  can  extract 
this  proposition  from  the  original  one,  and  only  a  narrow 
artistic  theory  can  defend  it  against  the  army  of  adverse 
instances.  Few  indeed  are  the  stories  beloved  of  the  world 
which  depict  the  triumph  of  pure  human  nature;  and 
many  are  those  which,  having  done  this,  fail  to  delight 
the  average  cultured  reader.  In  The  Pursuit  of  the  Piano^ 
Howells  himself  has  furnished  a  capital  specimen  for  the 
refuting  of  his  own  theory. 

No  jaded  reader  could  ask  for  a  more  promising, 
whimsical  situation  than  that  which  sets  this  story  going. 
A  soberly  romantic  lawyer  chances  to  catch  the  name 
of  a  young  lady  on  a  boxed  piano  which,  on  its  way  to 
her  New  Hampshire  home,  passes  the  cafe  window  at 
which  he  sits  breakfasting.  On  his  journey  to  some 
friends  the  piano  haunts  him,  bobbing  up  at  every 
station.  First  idly  wondering,  then  amused,  then  vexed, 
then  jesting  over  it  with  his  friends,  the  attorney  finally, 
by  dint  of  thinking  much  about  the  instrument  and  its 
owner,  .  .  .  But  we  must  not  tell  the  story  just 
yet.  Stopping  here,  you  will  surely  sense  the  delightful 
possibilities  of  the  odd  encounter.  Now,  if  the  theory 
of  psychological  realism  is  sound,  a  good  story  would 
inevitably  result  from  the  depicting  of  the  hero  con- 
trolling and  finishing  up  the  complication,  by  the  use  of 
his  own  inner  nature,  his  impulses,  his  desires,  his  fancies, 
his  serious  reflections.  Unfortunately,  though,  it  does 
not   work   out   that   way   here.     The   inner   historj'^   of 

^  In  A  Pair  of  Patient  Lovers. 


70  SHORT  STORY   WRITING 

Gaites,  the  lawyer,  is  faithfully  drawn.  Two  or  three 
hundred  of  his  mental  states  are  painstakingly  recorded; 
and  every  turn,  halt,  and  advance  toward  the  end  which 
such  a  man  in  just  such  an  affair  must  attain  is  illumi- 
nated. But,  for  all  that,  the  story  ends  flat — and  the  flat- 
ness is  quite  exasperating,  in  spite  of  the  delicious  predica- 
ment Gaites  is  brought  into  at  the  close.  This  predica- 
ment is  irrelevant  to  the  plot, — a  mere  adornment,  albeit 
a  good  one.  The  story  ends  with  the  true  lovers  em- 
bracing in  the  Cloister;  for  then  and  there  the  initial 
complication  solves  itself,  the  pursuit  of  the  piano  is  over, 
and  the  central  character  works  out  what  we  all  hope  is  his 
salvation.  Now,  this  entire  scene  is  incomparably  weaker 
than  any  before  it.  It  neither  thrills  nor  excites  nor 
tickles  nor  alleviates  nor  even  offends.  It  is  just  what 
a  sane  young  man  and  a  sane  young  woman  would  do, 
according  to  all  the  laws  of  mental  balance  and  con- 
temporary manners;  which  is  to  say  that  it  is  as  un- 
dramatic  as  coffee  and  rolls. 

AVhat  does  this  suggest,  if  not  that  a  real  character 
seldom  acts  dramatically?  Still  less  often  does  his  con- 
duct in  a  crisis  appear  dramatic  to  a  spectator  who  sees 
all  his  inner  motives,  impulses,  and  directions  in  their 
entirety.  Let  us  frame  the  truth  with  a  paradox:  let  us 
say  that  most  acts  which  are  true  to  character  are  not 
characteristic.  Much  that  a  man  does  under  the  guid- 
ance of  some  impulse  or  sentiment  may  be  consistent 
with  the  latter  and  yet  may  not  imply  it. 

Here  once  more  we  discover  the  dramatic  effect  resting 
upon  a  purely  intellectual  one.  If  you  will  turn  to  your 
Elements  of  Logic,  you  will  find  that  any  given  proposition 
is  implied  by  an  infinite  number  of  pairs  of  other  proposi- 
tions. Thus,  to  show  that  Socrates  is  mortal,  you  may 
assert  that  Socrates  is  an  Athenian,  and  all  Athenians  are 
mortal;  or  that  Socrates  is  a  philosopher,  and  all  phi- 


WHAT  SHALL  YOU  WRITE  ABOUT?  71 

losophers  return  to  dust;  or  that  Socrates  is  harassed  by  his 
wife,  and  that  all  men  who  live  in  such  connubial  conflict 
come  to  an  untimely  end;  and  so  on,  endlessly.  It  is 
for  this  purely  logical  reason  that,  if  told  only  that  Soc- 
rates is  mortal,  you  do  not  know  much  about  him.  True 
as  mortality  is  to  his  nature,  it  does  not  characterize 
it;  it  does  not  mark  off  this  man  from  other  creatures, 
nor  does  it  indicate  its  own  inner  necessity.  It  is  nothing 
more  than  a  scrap  of  information,  as  unenlightening  as  it 
is  true.  For,  though  it  is  implied  by  Socrates'  nature,  it 
does  not  imply  this  nature;  and  hence  it  is  no  genuine 
revelation. 

Now  apply  this  distinction  to  character  drawing. 
Suppose  you  wish  to  picture  a  cruel  man.  You  will  cast 
about  for  appropriate  incidents.  You  may  observe  a 
cruel  man  for  a  long  time  and  fot  down  all  that  he  does. 
Much  of  tills  will  doubtless  flow  from  his  harshness;  he 
may  squeeze  his  debtors,  he  may  beat  children,  and  he 
may  know  no  gratitude.  But  can  you,  merely  by  setting 
down  such  episodes,  be  sure  of  revealing  the  villain's 
personality?  Not  at  all.  For  all  such  acts,  though  in- 
volved in  the  trait  of  cruelty,  do  not  necessarily  involve 
this  trait.  A  kind  man  in  desperate  straits  may  squeeze 
debtors;  a  gentle  neurasthenic  lady  may  beat  children 
mercilessly,  when  she  is  'having  a  spell';  and  a  merely 
stupid  man  may  be  thankless  toward  his  benefactors. 
These  acts,  therefore,  carry  in  themselves  no  final, 
irresistible  conviction  about  their  perpetrators;  for  a  great 
variety  of  temperaments,  appetites,  and  passing  emotions 
may  terminate  in  such  conduct.  Not  even  the  psycho- 
logical inevitability  of  their  happening  in  a  given  situation 
lends  them  any  genuine  significance.  A  sneeze  is  more  /  / 
inevitable  than  a  woman's  decision  in  a  love  affair.  A 
sane  man's  resolve  to  come  indoors  when  it  rains  is 
more  inevitable  than  his  resolve  to  forgive  an  enemy. 


72  SHORT   STORY  WRITING 

But  which  is  more  dramatic?  Which  reveals  the  char- 
acter? 

We  may,  in  conclusion,  bring  the  matter  into  rela- 
tion with  the  other  ideal  of  the  short  story,  the  single 
effect.  The  writer  who  begins  with  a  character  supposed 
to  have  a  certain  trait  and  with  a  situation  in  which  this 
trait  is  to  be  developed  must,  of  course,  live  up  to  his 
promises.  He  must  persuade  us  that  his  hero  is  just  the 
sort  of  person  intended.  Now,  if  the  hero's  conduct  is 
merely  consistent  throughout  the  tale,  his  nature  will  be 
equivocal.  If  it  is  equivocal,  it  is  vague.  If  vague,  it 
lacks  the  effect  of  a  clear-cut  character.  Hence  the  story 
produces  at  least  two  effects,  that  of  the  initial  situa- 
tion and  all  its  half-pledges,  and  that  of  the  development. 
And,  so,  it  has  failed. 

i.  The  single  effect  in  dramatic  narrative  is  generally  pro- 
duced, not  hy  depicting  a  mere  problem,  hut  hy  depicting  a 
conflict.  And  this  conflict  ends  in  one  of  two  ways:  (a)  it 
brings  out  an  act  which  is  uniquely  characteristic  of  the 
actor,  or  else  (6)  it  finishes  with  a  merely  consistent  act  of 
violation.  These  are  the  only  two  clearly  marked  types  of 
conduct  which  hold  the  reader's  interest  to  the  last  without 
altering  its  quality. 

a.  The  uniquely  characteristic  act.  In  an  oft-cited 
remark  to  Maupassant  Flaubert  says: 

When  you  pass  a  grocer  sitting  at  the  door  of  his  shop, 
a  janitor  smoking  his  pipe,  a  stand  of  hackney  coaches, 
show  me  that  grocer  and  that  janitor,  their  attitudes,  their 
whole  physical  appearance,  embracing  likewise  . 
their  whole  moral  nature,  so  that  I  cannot  confound  them 
with  any  other  grocer  or  any  other  janitor.  Make  me 
see,  in  one  word,  that  a  certain  cab  horse  does  not  re- 
semble the  fifty  others  that  follow  or  precede  it. 

This  advice  is  sound,  though  not  to  be  followed  except 
in  the  handling  of  the  most  important  features  of  a  story, 


WHAT  SHALL  YOU  WRITE   ABOUT?  73 

especially  in  character  drawing  and  plotting.  To  catch 
individuality  is  the  artist's  highest  achievement;  for  in- 
dividuality is  single  in  its  effect  and  essentially  dramatic, 
thus  realizing  the  two  virtues  of  brief  fiction.  An  act 
which  brings  out  this,  the  quality  of  the  whole  man, 
need  not  be  exciting.  It  may  be,  apart  from  its  setting, 
the  veriest  trifle,  as  it  is  in  O.  Henry's  The  Moment  of 
Victory,  where  the  hero,  bespangled  with  war  medals, 
walks  up  to  the  girl  who  long  ago  had  jilted  him  con- 
temptuously and  says  to  her:  '^Oh,  I  don't  know!  Maybe 
I  could  if  I  tried!"  Being  ignorant  of  the  hero's  previous 
deed  and  of  the  girl's  cruelty,  you  would  find  little  in  this 
climax  to  interest  you.  But,  as  a  revelation  of  Willie 
Robbins'  career  and  soul,  it  is  perfect.  It  is  not  simply 
the  truth,  it  is  the  one  truth  that  enlightens. 

b.  The  consistent  act  of  violation.  Please  construe 
'violation'  in  its  legal  sense.  It  means  disregard  of  law  or 
custom.  Thus  it.  includes  not  only  excesses  of  physical 
force  but  also  every  case  of  formal  transgression,  how- 
ever mild  or  free  from  appeal  to  brawn  or  malicious 
cunning.  The  splendid  lie  by  which  Jean  Francois 
cheated  justice  and  saved  his  cowardly  friend,  in  Coppee's 
masterpiece.  The  Substitute,  is  no  deed  of  brute  force;  but  it 
does  do  violence  to  law  and  custom  in  that  it  delivered 
a  criminal  from  justice  and  punished  an  innocent  man. 
And  so  it  falls  well  within  our  definition.  So  too  does  the 
horrible  murder  of  the  little  boy  in  Merimee's  Mateo 
Falcone.  It  is  not  the  outburst  of  passion  nor  the  horror 
of  its  deed  that  makes  it  a  sound  dramatic  ending.  It 
is  its  human  consistency  which,  added  to  the  intensity  of 
the  act,  warrants  it.  That  is  to  say,  a  man  living  in 
Corsica  and  brought  up  as  Mateo  Falcone  was  would  come 
to  esteem  loyalty  above  justice,  even  to  the  point  of  slaying 
his  owTi  son  for  betraying  a  criminal  who  had  put  his 
trust  in  the  lad.     This  violates  the  reader's  no+ion  of  law 


74  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

and  order,  as  well  as  the  official  proprieties  of  Corsica.  If 
it  did  not,  the  story's  ending  would  be  quite  flat;  it  would 
not  differ  from  the  legalized  hanging  of  a  condemned 
murderer,  which  is  an  undramatic  horror.  May  it  not 
well  be  that  a  Corsican  bandit  would  find  Merimee's 
grisly  tale  a  tame  moral  story?  For  to  him  Falcone's 
deed  would  not  appear  at  all  unlawful.  Its  harshness 
would  strike  him  as  the  unfortunate  but  necessary  harsh- 
ness of  a  wise  custom  wisely  enforced.  He  would  say 
that  it  was  no  more  dramatic  than  defending  oneself  with 
a  cane  against  street  thugs. 

j.  The  three  levels  of  conflict.  We  have  said  that  the 
only  situation  suited  to  fictional  presentation  is  that  which, 
in  real  life,  would  stimulate  the  characters  to  thought 
and  action.  The  broader  structural  features  of  such  a 
situation  have  just  been  indicated;  it  now  remains  for  us  to 
point  out  the  material  of  which  it  is  made.  This  exhibits 
three  pretty  sharp  forms:  the  conflict  may  lie  between, 

a.  Man  and  the  physical  world. 

b.  Man  and  man. 

c.  One  force  and  another,  in  the  same  man. 

a.  Man  and  the  physical  world.  This  is  the  primary 
battle  of  life,  the  battle  which  the  coddled  city-folk  forget 
so  easily.  The  struggle  against  a  head-wind,  the  nursing 
of  a  pitiful  corn  crop  through  a  desperate  drought,  the 
hungry  searching  for  a  rabbit  in  the  bitter  y/inter  wood, 
the  flight  from  wild  beasts,  and  the  escape  from  savage 
captors, — of  such  is  still  the  life  of  the  Lower  Billion,  who 
inhabit  most  of  the  earth  beyond  Fifth  Avenue. 
Those  who  are  not  of  the  Lower  Billion  sometimes  look 
down  upon  such  adventures  and  sniff  top-loftily  at  the 
Hhrillers'  which  are  written  about  them.  But  you  must 
pay  no  heed  to  such  talk.  It  is  only  the  critics'  back- 
handed way  of  saying  that  they  are  too  far  from  raw  life 
to  understand  it  sympathetically. 


WHAT  SHALL  YOU  WRITE  ABOUT?  75 

*  For  the  average  reader,  man's  battle  with  nature  will 
continue  to  be  the  most  absorbing  story  theme,  and  man's 
triumphant  conspiracy  against  nature's  blind,  dumb 
cruelty  will  remain  the  supreme  story  plot,  until  the  last 
frontier  has  yielded  to  the  moving  picture  show  and  the 
hot- water  flat.  And,  even  in  that  day,  the  adventure 
story  will  grip  the  young  and  the  under-educated;  for 
to  these  the  world  teem*^  with  mystery,  perils,  and  sudden 
shocks.     And  they  will  read  what  they  understand. 

b.  Man  and  man.  Society  is  a  gigantic  compromise 
whereby  millions  of  people  who  differ  from  one  another 
more  widely  than  chimpanzee  differs  from  orang-outang 
may  rub  up  against  one  another  with  a  minimum  of 
offense.  Excellent  as  the  compromise  is,  in  many  re- 
spects, it  is  not  and  never  will  be  so  skilfully  devised 
that  every  man  may  have  what  he  wants  and  be  rid  of 
what  irks  him.  In  this  unpleasant  fact  you  have,  re- 
duced to  lowest  terms,  the  basic  dilemma  which  generates 
thousands  of  story  plots,  all  of  which  may  fairly  be  called 
social.  Two  lads  wooing  the  same  lass;  two  workmen 
after  the  same  job;  two  millionaires  scheming  against 
each  other,  to  control  a  railroad;  two  politicians  seeking 
the  same  contract;  two  ladies  sighing  to  lead  the  Upper 
Ten  of  Hicksville;  two  school  boys  after  the  captaincy  of 
the  baseball  team:  these  are  headed  for  a  very  different 
battle  from  that  which  the  wilderness  hunter  wages  against 
lions  and  famine.  They  are  matching  desire  against  de- 
sire, faith  against  faith,  personality  against  personality. 

It  is  in  this  field  of  conflicts  that  the  average  mature 
man  of  today  finds  his  steadiest  entertainment.  And 
the  reason  for  this  lies  on  the  surface  of  affairs.  It  is  be- 
cause fiction  readers  take  deepest  interest  in  what  touches 
vitally  their  daily  life.  Adventure  stories  will  thrill 
more  sharply  and  be  sought  more  eagerly  in  hours  of  utter 
relaxation.     But  they  must  yield  to  the  social  story,  for 


76  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

they  lack  altogether  its  power  of  awakening  thought  and 
the  more  thoughtful  emotions.  There  was  an  age  when 
they  did  not  wholly  lack  it;  and  that  not  so  very  long  ago. 
As  late  as  Shakespeare's  day  most  people  inhabited  a 
world  of  freebooters,  sudden  wars,  and  irresistible  plagues; 
a  world  whose  brutal  vicissitudes  called  for  a  man's  best 
thinking  and  commanded  his  attention  for  a  goodly  part 
of  his  life.  And  so  adventure  had  a  reality  and  a  serious- 
ness even  to  the  comfortable  burgher  and  the  office  scriv- 
ener. It  was  not  a  thing  apart  from  life.  To  the  burgher 
the  press-gang  might  come  in  the  night  and  lure  him 
aboard  the  King's  four-decker,  to  brave  the  cutlasses  of 
Barbary  pirates,  on  far-off,  sweltering  seas.  And  the 
village  clerk  might  become,  on  an  instant's  command,  the 
go-between  for  lordly  lovers  or  the  spy  of  high  intriguers. 
But  these  possibilities  are  no  more.  Ours  are  other  dan- 
gers. We  may  be  swindled  by  rascally  promoters,  or 
looted  by  the  tariff,  or  injured  by  society's  foibles  and 
superstitions;  or  caught  in  a  conflict  of  morals;  and  so  it  is 
to  these  that  our  imagination  will  turn  most  freely  and 
with  the  soberest,  most  sustained  interest. 

c.  One  force  with  another^  in  the  same  man.  This 
conflict  furnishes  the  stuff  of  which  the  so-called  psycholog- 
ical story  is  made.  You  see  most  clearly  what  it  is,  if  you 
inspect  one  of  its  most  admirable  specimens,  Markheim. 
The  struggle  which  Stevenson  here  depicts  is  purely  in- 
ternal. It  is  all  the  murderer's  struggle  with  himself;  or, 
more  precisely,  the  conflict  between  two  natures  in  him. 
The  shopkeeper  whom  he  slays  is  only  an  incidental 
presence;  the  real  characters  are  the  souls  of  Markheim. 
And  so  it  is  always  in  stojies  of  this  class. 

Such  conflicts  are  not  discerned  by  the  greater  public. 
It  is  not  in  the  average  man's  power  to  analyze  and  inter- 
pret impulses,  thoughts  and  emotions;  or  even  to  observe 
the   flux   of   these    accurately.     Indeed,    he   is    scarcely 


WHAT  SHALL  YOU  WRITE  ABOUT?  77 

awi^re  of  their  existence.  He  knows  only  the  things  which 
stir  them  into  existence,  and  all  his  instinctive  interest  is 
in  those  same  things,  as  it  should  be.  There  is  no  more 
reason  for  his  being  intimate  with  them  than  there  is 
for  his  investigating  minutely  the  workings  of  his  heart 
valves  or  the  chemical  processes  of  his  spinal  cord.  The 
immediate,  the  pressing  problems  of  his  life  come  from  the 
world  about  him  and  from  the  people  with  whom  he  has  to 
deal.  What  with  the  worries  of  business  and  politics  and 
social  affairs,  Tom,  Dick  and  Harry  find  scant  time  for 
musing  over  their  private  mental  machinery.  And  Na- 
ture has  wisely  endowed  them  with  little  knack  in  that 
direction. 

Thus  it  appears  that  the  three  types  of  conflict  appeal 
respectively  to  the  three  chief  types  of  mind;  the  primitive, 
the  socialized,  and  the  intellectual.  As  we  shall  see 
later,  this  fact  must  influence  both  the  construction  and 
the  literary  manner  of  all  stories. 


78  SHORT   STORY   WRITING 


Exercises 

1.  Which  qualities  of  a  short  story  are  given  in  the 
x'ollowing?  2.  Which  are  wholly  lacking?  3.  Which  are 
suggested? 

A  pathetic  plea  that  a  town  be  saved  from  desertion 
has  come  to  the  State  Railroad  Commission.  It  is 
from  Theresa,  35  miles  north  of  Milwaukee,  a  settlement 
of  350  inhabitants,  which  feels  that  it  is  really  off  the 
map  because  the  Chicago,  Minneapolis  &  Sault  Ste. 
Marie  Railway  line  was  built  about  a  mile  and  a  half 
away  from  it.  The  citizens  now  ask  that  the  road  be 
compelled  to  build  a  spur  track,  and  run  trains  so  that  it 
can  realize  its  destiny. 

Theresa  was  an  old-time  fur  trading  post,  established 
in  1842  by  Solomon  Juneau,  son  of  the  founder  of  Mil- 
waukee, and  named  after  his  eldest  daughter.  Ma]?y 
French  Canadians  went  to  live  there,  and  the  place  at 
one  time  seemed  to  have  a  bright  future.  The  indifference 
of  the  railroad,  however,  resulted  in  the  building  up  of 
Theresa  Station  outside  its  old  bounds,  and  in  late  years 
the  enterprising  younger  people  and  immigrants  have 
settled  there  instead  of  the  original  town.  Population 
and  prosperity  have  dwindled  in  the  face  of  growth  all 
about.  For  a  long  time  this  condition  was  permitted 
to  go  unchecked,  but  at  length  the  "booster"  has  come 
and  the  Theresa  Advancement  Association  has  been 
formed.  It  is  this  organization  that  has  appealed  to  the 
Railroad  Commission  in  a  quaint  document.  Here  are 
some  of  its  paragraphs : 

The  town  began  to  wane  in  the  early  70's  in  business  prominence 
because  of  the  ever  lacking  transportation  facihties. 

Our  $16,000  school  has  now  only  two  departments  and  our  dis- 
trict has  lost  the  yearly  State  aid  on  account  of  incompetency. 

It  even  has  not  been  successful  to  induce  the  retiring  farmer  as 
even  he  wants  his  accommodations  yet  and  wants  to  spend  the  rest 
of  liis  life  in  a  town  that  is  pressing  gaily  ahead  instead  of  the  one 
going  to  the  contrary. 


EXERCISES  79 

Hailroad  officials,  however,  say  that  it  would  not  be 
worth  while  to  serve  the  old  town,  and  that  it  can  never 
realize  its  ambition  to  become  a  metropolis. 

1.  Is  the  following  report  good  material  for  a  short 
story  in  its  present  form?     If  not,  state  precisely  why  not. 

2.  Which  type  of  story  will  it  most  easily  make? 
Explain  your  answer. 

A  series  of  stormy  sessions  of  the  Hungarian  Parliament 
at  Budapest  reached  their  climax  today,  when  Julius 
Kovacs,  a  member  of  the  Opposition,  fired  three  shots  at 
Count  Tisza,  President  of  the  Chamber,  and  then  shot 
himself  in  the  temple.  Count  Tisza  was  unhurt,  but 
Kovacs  is  believed  to  be  dying. 

The  shooting  was  due  to  Count  Tisza's  methods  of 
quelliiig  the  attempts  at  obstruction  and  having  offending 
members  carried  out  by  the  police.  Members  of  the 
Opposition  who  had  been  suspended  on  account  of  re- 
cent disturbances  gathered  in  a  cafe  in  the  morning  and 
proceeded  in  a  body  to  the  House. 

No  attempt  was  made  to  prevent  their  entrance. 
This  clemency  is  believed  to  be  due  to  the  fact  that 
Count  Tisza  knew  that  cinematograph  operators  were 
stationed  outside  the  Parliament  Building  to  take  pic- 
tures of  the  struggles  of  members  with  soldiers,  and  he 
wished  to  prevent  such  a  blow  to  the  prestige  of  the 
Chamber. 

The  members,  on  reaching  their  seats,  found  themselves 
surrounded  by  police,  who  requested  the  intruders  to 
retire.  Some  quietly  obeyed,  but  other  members  of  the 
Opposition  raised  shouts  and  caterwaulings  against  the 
President.  Finally  the  entire  Opposition  were  driven 
out  of  the  hall  by  the  police. 

Immediately  afterward  Count  Tisza  remarked: 

"Now  that  the  House  is  cleared,  there  is  no  fear  of  a 
repetition  of  Wednesday's  disgraceful  scenes.  We  will 
proceed  to  work." 

At  that  instant  Deputy  Kovacs  forced  his  way  into  the 
press  gallery,  holding  a  revolver  in  his  hand,  and  fire^ 
three  shots  at  Count  Tisza,  crying: 


80  SHORT   STORY   WRITING 

"There  is  still  a  member  of  the  Opposition  in  the 
House.     They  are  not  all  driven  forth.     I  am  he." 

Then,  turning  his  weapon  on  himself,  he  fired  a  bullet 
into  his  temple  and  fell  to  the  ground. 

Count  Tisza's  first  thought  was  for  the  Countess 
sitting  in  the  gallery,  and  he  made  a  reassuring  gesture, 
but  his  wife,  who  had  rushed  screaming  to  the  front  at 
the  first  shot,  sank  back  sobbing  and  unable  to  believe 
the  evidence  of  her  eyes  that  her  husband  was  unhurt. 

Read  George  Meredith's  The  Tale  of  Chloe,  The  House 
on  the  Beach  and  The  Case  of  General  Ople  and  Lady  Camper , 
searching  out  the  quality  in  each  tale  which  makes  toward 
or  away  from  the  short  story  ideal.  Analyze  The  Tale  of 
Chloe,  especially  with  respect  to  the  complexity  of  (a)  the 
generating  circumstances,  (b)  the  plot  complication,  and 
(c)  the  character  development. 

Which  type  of  situation  is  dealt  with  in  each  of  the 
following  stories?     Explain  clearly  your  answers. 

Kipling, — The  Man  Who  Would  be  King. 

Morris,  Gouverneur, — An  Idyl  of  Pelham  Bay  Park 
(in  It). 

London, — The  Sun-Dog  Trail  (in  Love  of  Life). 

O'Grady,  R.— Fettered  (Harper's,  May,  1912). 

Gather,  Willa  Sibert, — The  Bohemian  Girl  (McClure's, 
August,  1912). 

Gibbon,  Perceval, — The  Murderer  (Harper's,  August. 
1912). 

Oppenheim,  James, — Clerks  (Harper's,  August,  1912) 

Norris,  Kathleen, — S  is  for  Shiftless  Susanna  (Every- 
body's, August,  1912). 

Which  type  of  conflict  is  portrayed  in  each  of  the 
following?     Does  any  story  depict  two  types? 

Kipling,  R., — His  Chance  in  Life  (in  Plain  Tales  from 
the  Hills). 

— Watches  of  the  Night  (Ibid.). 


EXERCISES  81 

Henry,  0., — No  Story  (in  Options), 
Freeman,    Mary   Wilkins, — Old   Lady   Pingree    (in   A 
Humble  Romance). 

Maupassant, — The  Horla. 

Moore,  G., — Homesickness  (in  The  Untitled  Field), 
Stockton,  F.  R., — The  Lady,  or  the  Tiger? 
Aldrich,  T.  B., — Marjorie  Daw, 


CHAPTER  III.— WHAT  SHALL  YOU  SAY 
ABOUT  IT? 

SECTION   I.      GENERAL   PRINCIPLES  , 

In  the  preceding  chapter  ve  have  looked  at  the  varic  as 
kinds  of  dramatic  situations  which  may  produce  the 
single  effect.  We  now  have  to  ask  how  these  shall  be 
presented  so  as  to  produce  it.  This  (question  brings  us 
into  tec!inique. 

L  Tell  the  story.  Foolish  though^  it  may  sound,  this 
is  the  first  advice  which  the  beginner  must  take  to  heart. 
To  be  sure,  it  does  not  inform  him  how  to  tell  his  tale;  but 
it  does  direct  his  efforts.  For  the  advice  means  that 
the  writer  must  attend,  first  of  all,  to  reporting  the  affairs 
which  constitute  the  plot.  Put  negatively,  the  substance 
of  this  commandment  shines  forth  more  clearly.  Let  us 
phrase  it  thus: 

Pay  no  special  attention  to  description  of  scenes,  char- 
acter drawing,  philosophizing,  or  stylistic  effects  until  you 
have  stated  all  the  essentials  of  the  plot  so  clearly  that  the 
theme  and  the  outcome  and  the  single  effect  are  apparent 
{though  not  necessarily  vivid)  and  unequivocal. 

For  many  this  is  the  hardest  lesson  of  all.  Especially 
does  it  irk  those  straight-away  writers  who  dash  off 
their  brilhant  ideas  at  a  single  sitting,  in  white  heat. 
Their  attention  inevitably  fluctuates  between  plot  and 
characters,  characters  and  setting,  setting  and  phrase- 
ology; and  so,  unless  the  story  is  tremendously  vivid 
and  quite  simple  in  structure,  they  lose  sight  of  some 
incidents   upon  whose   sharpening  the   very   sense   and 

82 


WHAT  SHALL  YOU  SAY   ABOUT   IT?  83 

import  of  the  narrative  depend.  Now  I  do  not  say 
that  straight-away  writing  is  therefore  to  be  decried. 
Far  from  it.  Some  good  writers  work  so  most  naturally, 
and  everybody  should  try  to.  But  to  the  beginner  the 
danger  of  the  method  is  usually  present,  and  its  avoidance 
does -not  make  the  above  warning  less  trustworthy;  it 
only  shows  that  the  particular  writer  is  exceptionally  skil- 
ful in  carrying  many  details  in  his  mind  simultaneously. 
There  is  no  denying  that  the  story's  the  thing,  after 
all;  and  that  all  its  finish,  its  clever  turns,  its  ingenious 
trappings,  and  its  sparkling  epigrams  are  but  poor 
tinsel,  «nce  the  drama  which  they  overlay  is  veiled, 
blurred,  or  broken.  Now,  it  is  just  this  axiom  which 
warrants  the  rule  we  have  laid  down.  It  is  this,  too, 
which  indirectly  accounts  for  the  fact  that  most  good 
story  writers  have  served*  an  apprenticeship  as  newspaper 
reporters.  People  usually  suppose  that  the  work  of  a 
reporter  brings  him  into  touch  with  life,  and  that  the 
intimacy  with  human  nature  which  he  thus  acquires  is 
what  makes  his  stories.  But  this  is  less  than  a  half- 
truth.  To  be  sure,/^the  reporter  does  rub  up  against  the 
realities  of  things  more  than  bookkeepers  and  fishwives 
do;  but  there  are  many  professions  and  trades  which 
penetrate  toward  the  springs  of  human  nature  far  more 
deeply  than  he.  The  average  physician,  the  lawyer,  the 
policeman,  the  settlement  worker,  the  business  man, 
the  valet,  and  even  the  apartment  janitor  see  some 
Things  as  They  Are  more  lucidly  than  he;  for  they  are 
participants  and  witnesses,  whereas  he  only  jots  down 
their  testimony.  Why,  then,  is  it  that  there  are  so  few 
physicians  and  lawyers  and  valets  penning  memorable 
stories,  and  so  many  reporters  doing  it?  It  is  because 
the  newspaper  man  becomes  proficient  in  setting  down 
the  story,  the  whole  story,  and  nothing  but  the  story. 
The   facts   without   trimmings   he   must   deliver   daily. 


ft'. 


84  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

Doing  this,  he  masters  the  first  and  most  important 
trick  of  story  telUng. 

The  beginner  cannot  do  better  than  imitate  the  news- 
paper man's  procedure,  in  its  essentials.  For  the  drill's 
sake,  we  shall  schematize  the  latter  a  little— bej^ond  the 
form  of  ordinary  journalistic  practice.  In  handling  a 
topic  important  enough  to  head  a  column,  the  reporter 
commonly  performs  three  operations  with  his  material. 
First,  on  the  scene  of  the  news-gathering  (or  on  his  way 
back  to  the  office),  he  jots  down  phrase-wise  the  gist  of 
the  story,  and  its  most  striking  feature.  At  his  desk, 
he  leads  off  with  a  few  paragraphs,  giving  this  same  gist 
in  simple  narrative,  so  that  the  hasty  newspaper  reader 
may  learn  the  facts  in  the  first  half-minute  and,  if  they 
do  not  interest  him,  skip  elsewhere.  This  opening  sum- 
mary is  followed  by  a  more  elaborate  account  which 
brings  in  the  interesting  incidentals.  Frequently  this 
approaches  literary  form;  and  the  writer  improves  it  in 
later  editions  of  the  paper  (drawing  upon  his  imagination 
now  and  then,  alas!). 

Now,  let  the  story  writer  do  likewise.  Having  an  idea 
for  a  story,  let  him  first  sketch  it  in  the  following  form:* 

1.  The  theme  is 

2.  The  main  complication  is 

3.  The  dominant  character  is 

4.  The  decisive  character  trait  is 

5.  The  crucial  situation  is 

6.  The  outcome  is 

In  answering  these  questions,  do  not  use  single  words 
or  phrases.     Use  declarative  sentences,  whenever  possible. 

1  The  meaning  of  these  questions  will  be  cleared  up  in  later  sec- 
tions of  this  chapter. 


WHAT  SHALL  YOU  SAY  ABOUT  IT?  85 

Other  modes  of  expression  are  hazy  and  may  only  con- 
ceal a  vagueness  in  your  own  mind. 

Next,  draw  up  a  bald  report  of  the  story  in  less  than 
500  words,  mentioning  only  as  much  as  is  needed  to 
make  it  absolutely  clear.  State  it  as  though  you  were 
reporting  an  actual  happening  for  a  newspaper. 

Finally,  expand  it  so  as  to  produce  the  strongest 
possible  single  effect. 

2.  What  the  simple  report  must  contain.  This  is  the 
first  matter  to  be  settled  after  the  general  idea  of  the 
story  has  been  hit  upon.  The  writer  must  fix  upon  his 
material  before  concerning  himself  with  its  literary 
form.     Now,  this  material  includes: 

a.  The  circumstances  giving  rise  to  the  main  complica- 
tion. 

b.  The  persons  actively  involved  in  the  main  compli- 
cation. 

c.  The  main  complication  itself. 

d.  The  character  trait  (if  any)  which  shapes  the  course 
of  events. 

e.  The  crucial  situation  (sometimes  ambiguously  called 
the  climax),  in  which  the  consequences  of  the  initial  com- 
plication reach  their  highest  intensity. 

f.  The  outcome  or  solution  of  the  crucial  situation 
(sometimes  called  the  denouement.) 

g.  The  import  (or  lesson)  of  the  story,  if  it  happens 
that  this  is  as  striking  as  the  events  themselves. 

To  illustrate  these  contents,  look  at  Kipling's  The 
Strange  Ride  of  Morrowhie  Jukes.  The  generating 
circumstances  of  this  story  are,  on  the  one  hand,  the 
alleged  Hindu  custom  of  consigning  to  an  open-air 
prison  those  who  recover  from  trance  and  catalepsy; 
and,  on  the  other  hand,  Jukes'  business  visit  to  a  desert 


86  SHORT   STORY  WRITING 

where  such  a  prison  was  situated,  and  his  falling  ill  of 
fever  and  chasing  a  wild  dog,  in  his  delirium.  The 
persons  actively  involved  in  the  main  complication  are 
Jukes,  Gunga  Dass,  and  the  sentinel.  The  main  com- 
plication is  Jukes'  tumbling  into  the  horrible  village  of 
the  officially  dead,  whence  escape  seems  impossible. 
The  character  trait  which  shapes  the  course  of  events  is 
Gunga  Dass'  greed;  his  treachery  also  counts  heavily. 
(But  neither  actually  solves  the  complication;  in  other 
words,  this  is  not  a  character  story.)  The  crucial  situa- 
tion is  that  in  which  Gunga  Dass  assaults  Jukes  and  leaves 
him  at  the  quicksand's  edge,  robbed  of  the  paper  which 
showed  the  way  of  escape.  The  outcome  is  the  arrival 
of  Dunnoo  at  the  edge  of  the  pit,  and  his  rescue  of  his 
master.  The  story  has  no  import  or  lesson;  it  is  simple 
adventure.  In  this  respect  most  stories  resemble  it; 
and  a  very  large  number  depict  no  important  character 
trait.  None  of  the  other  five  materials,  however,  are 
ever  wholly  absent  from  a  genuine  story. 

The  learner  is  particularly  warned  kgainst  slurring 
over  the  generating  circumstances  and  the  character 
trait.  These  are  commonly  neglected,  to  the  reader's 
distress.  Often  minute  incidents  in  the  opening  situa- 
tion throw  much  light  upon  the  later  course  of  affairs, 
and  so  too  do  trifling  deeds  of  the  hero.  It  is  all  too  easy 
to  overlook  such  in  the  rush  of  the  narrative. 

3.  The  form  of  presentation.  We  now  stand  at  the 
threshold  of  technique.  To  render  the  facts  of  the 
story  is  a  reporter's  task.  But  reporting  is  not  storj^- 
telling.  One  may  tell  a  truth  without  casting  it  into 
dramatic  narrative,  and  without  producing  that  single 
effect  which  is  the  very  soul  of  the  short  story.  Not  all 
good  narrative  is  drama,  nor  does  all  good  drama  yield  a 
unified  impression.  But  what,  now,  does  fulfil  the 
double  ideal  of  our  art? 


WHAT  SHALL  YOU  SAY  ABOUT   IT?  87 

As  has  been  said,  there  is  no  particular  mechanical  or 
outward  form  which  all  good  stories  alike  assume.  There 
is,  though,  a  small  set  of  principles  which  are  deduced 
from  the  double  ideal  and  produce  the  desired  re- 
sult. 
.^^-^-We  have  seen  that  the  single  effect  may  be  produced 
either  by  developing  a  theme  after  the  fashion  of  a 
narrative  sermon,  or  else  by  stressing  one  or  more  of  the 
three  factors  of  the  dramatic  narrative,  namely  the 
character,  the  complication,  or  the  setting.  Now,  this 
means  that  the  effect  is  not  contributed  by  something 
apart  from  the  story  proper;  not  by  fine  descriptions 
joined  to  the  dramatic  narrative,  nor  by  a  running  fire  of 
aphorisms  on  the  side,  nor  by  any  other  device  save  the 
plot  itself.  If  the  effect  is  produced  by  the  theme,  it  is 
produced  only  in  and  through  the  events  which  demon- 
strate the  theme,  as  in  Hawthorne's  The  Great  Stone  Face. 
If  it  is  produced  by  emphasis  of  a  dramatic  factor,  it  is 
again  the  narrative  containing  this  factor  that  turns  the 
trick.  In  short,  the  two  ideals  are  realized,  not  hy  two 
distinct  parts  of  a  story,  hut  in  each  and  every  part  of  it 
identically.  Their  respective  expressions  are  related 
as  are  pattern  and  argument,  in  prose  exposition  generally. 
This  relation  Stevenson  aptly  describes  thus: 

The  conjuror  juggles  with  two  oranges,  and  our  pleasure 
in  beholding  him  springs  from  this,  that  neither  is  for  an 
instant  overlooked  or  sacrificed.  So  with  the  writer. 
His  pattern,  which  is  to  please  the  supersensual  ear,  is 
yet  addressed,  throughout  and  first  of  all,  to  the  demands 
of  logic.  Whatever  be  the  obscurities,  whatever  the 
intricacies  of  the  argument,  the  neatness  of  the  fabric 
must  not  suffer,  or  the  artist  has  proved  unequal  to  his 
design.  And  on  the  other  hand,  no  form  of  words  must  be 
selected,  no  knot  must  be  tied  among  the  phrases,  unless 
knot  and  word  be  precisely  what  is  wanted  to  forward 
and  illuminate  the  argument;  for  to  fail  in  this  is  to 


88  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

swindle  in  the  game.  .  .  .  Pattern  and  argument 
live  in  each  other;  and  it  is  by  the  brevity,  clearness, 
charm,  or  emphasis  of  the  second  that  we  judge  the 
strength  and  fitness  of  the  first.  .  .  .  That  style 
is  therefore  the  most  perfect,  not,  as  fools  say,  which  is 
the  most  natural  in  the  disjointed  babble  of  the  chronicler: 
but  which  attains  the  highest  degree  of  elegant  and  preg- 
nant implication  unobtrusively;  or,  if  obtrusively,  then 
with  the  greatest  gain  to  sense  and  vigor.     .      .      . ' 

What  argument  is  to  exposition  plot  is  to  dramatic 
narrative;  and,  less  exactly,  the  single  effect  corresponds 
to  the  pattern.  For  argument  is  the  logical,  and  plot  the 
historical  or  psychological  sequence  of  developing  items; 
and  this  same  sequence,  in  its  influence  upon  the  reader, 
produces  in  him  the  impression  of  a  fabric  uniquely 
definite  in  texture  and  hue.  This  influence  has  long  been 
called  style  and  has  been  treated  as  an  independent 
existence  (which  it  is  not).  It  is  merely  the  dynamic 
phase  of  the  writer's  ideas.  It  is  just  as  good  and  just 
as  bad  as  those  ideas;  and,  what  is  more  to  the  point, 
it  inhabits  the  very  words  and  phrases  which  they  do. 
And  the  producing  of  it  is  identical  with  the  task  of 
selecting  and  ordering  the  items  of  the  story  that  will 
yield  a  single  dramatic  impression.  This  task  I  call 
integration. 

4.  Integration:   what   it   is   not.    Integration,    or   the 
working  up  of  parts  into  a  whole,  has  been  overdone  in 
,.v«      two  directions;  once  toward  the  ideal  of  drama,   and 
fKy    again  toward  that  of  the  single  effect.     In  the  latter  in- 
stance, Poe  and  not  a  few  writers  of  'atmosphere'  and 
complication,  aiming  only  to  arouse  a  certain  thrill,  a  par- 
ticular quality  of  emotion,  have  so  far  succeeded  that 
whatever  drama  their  stories  may  hold  potentiaUy  goes 
lost   in   the   glare   of  the   sensuous   explosion.     On   the 
other  hand,   some  writers  who  follow  Howells,  James, 
1  On  Style  in  Literature. 


WHAT  SHALL  YOU  SAY  ABOUT  IT?  89 

et  al,  subordinate  all  the  elements  to  the  evolution  of  the 
leading  character.  This  practice  has  gained  a  certain 
orthodoxy  in  contemporary  story  technique.  "In  a  well 
appointed  story,"  we  are  told,  "not  only  must  every- 
thing that  happens  grow  naturally  out  of  the  situation, 
but  it  must  seem  to  be  the  only  thing  that  could  happen 
under  the  circumstances."^  This  is  the  ideal  of  that 
miscalled  psychological  realism,  of  recent  vogue,  whose 
eyes  are  fixed  only  on  the  play  of  the  inevitable  movings 
in  human  nature. 

Now,  all  the  errors  of  technique  in  these  two  directions 
are  due,  not  to  lack  of  artistic  insight,  but  to  the  prior 
choosing  of  a  too  narrow  ideal.  The  artist  applies  to 
stories  at  large  the  special  devices  of  integration  which  per- 
fect the  kind  of  story  he  likes  to  tell;  and,  finding  this  is 
good,  he  fancies  that  he  has  come  upon  the  recipe  for  all 
good  story  telling.  The  truth  is,  though,  that  the  short 
story  has  no  recipe;  it  has  only  principles.  Its  integration 
is  not  definable  in  terms  of  any  single  fixed  relation  be- 
tween character  and  action,  or  situation  and  climax.  And 
it  is  not,  for  the  excellent  reason  that  these  factors  them- 
selves do  not  sustain  a  constant  relation  to  one  another. 
In  many  a  complication  story,  for  instance,  there  is  no 
development  of  character,  and  in  many  a  character  story 
the  complication  is  trifling.  Therefore  what  Poe  tells  us 
about  unifying  the  complication  is,  as  a  universal  rule, 
quite  as  wrong  as  what  Howells  advises  us  to  do  by  way  of 
focussing  upon  the  inner  growth  of  the  hero. 

5.  Integration:  what  it  is.  That  integration  is  a 
principle  rather  than  a  formula  appears  as  soon  as  we 
inspect  the  nature  of  narrative.  A  moment  ago  we 
compared  narrative  with  exposition,  pointing  out  that 
the  latter  is  knit  up  according  to  logical  principles,  and 
the  former  according  to  psychological  principles.     Now, 

1  Charity  Dye,  The  Story  Teller's  Art,  34. 


90  SHORT  STORY   WRITING 

integration  in  expository  writing  is  nothing  more  than 
the  selecting  and  ordering  of  facts  in  such  manner  that 
they  prove  the  main  thesis.  Of  course,  you  cannot 
state  the  form  of  their  connection  in  terms  of  special 
facts;  you  cannot  say,  for  instance,  that  you  must  begin 
with  generalities  and  proceed  to  particular  instances,  or 
that  your  first  proposition  should  hint  at  the  final  premise. 
Far  from  it !  There  is  only  one  rule,  and  that  is  that  the 
order,  as  well  as  the  choice,  of  facts  is  fixed  by  the  logical 
effect  you  wish  to  produce.  And  the  principle  of  order 
and  choice  is  that  of  implication. 

Much  the  same  situation  occurs  in  narrative,  but  with 
one  very  important  difference.  And  that  difference 
.springs  from  the  fact  that  the  aim  of  narrative  is  more 
various  than  that  of  exposition.  Exposition  aims  only 
to  prove.  Narrative  aims  to  produce  the  feeling  proper  to 
a  given  idea.  And  this  feeling  varies  with  the  idea; 
that  is,  it  varies  with  the  matter  of  fact.  But  there  are 
many,  many  feelings;  many  sentiments,  many  emotions. 
This  gives  us  a  situation  quite  different  from  that  in 
logic,  which  has  at  bottom  onlj^  two  t3^es  of  proof; 
namely  the  deductive  and  the  quasi-proof  by  probability. 
This  difference  is  very  profound,  but  we  cannot  here 
analyze  it  further,  for  it  would  soon  carry  us  far  into 
abstruse  philosophy.  Accept  it  as  a  fact,  with  the  further 
qualification  that,  in  narrative,  the  effect  is  produced  by 
the  particular  quality  of  the  facts  ordered,  no  less  than 
by  their  order  and  choice;  whereas  in  exposition  the 
effect  is  produced  wholly  by  the  logical  relation  of  the 
data,  and  is  utterly  indifferent  to  their  particular  quality. 
Thus,  it  is  all  the  same  to  the  logical  effect  whether  I 
prove  that  A  is  B  by  showing  that  all  A  is  M  and  all 
M  is  B;  or  by  showing  that  all  A  is  P,  and  all  P  is  B;  or 
that  all  A  is  X  and  all  X  is  B.  The  outcome  is  identical 
in  all  cases.     Not  so  in  narrative,  though.     It  makes  all 


WHAT   SHALL  YOU   SAY   ABOUT   IT?  91 

the  difference  in  the  world  to  the  psychological  effect 
as  to  the  particular  events  wherewith  I  may  show  that 
Jones  is  a  brave  man.  I  might  show  it  by  exhibiting 
him  in  the  act  of  defying  his  wife's  request  to  tend  to 
the  furnace;  or  again  by  his  carrying  a  cripple  out  of  a 
burning  building.  In  both  instances  you  might  sense 
his  courage,  but  how  unlike  your  emotions  would 
be! 

From  all  this  it  follows  that,  in  order  to  integrate  a 
given  set  of  items,  you  must  first  fix  sharply  tke  particular 
single  effect  at  which  you  are  aiming.  For  instance, 
suppose  you  wish  to  write  a  story  about  a  wife  who  falls 
in  love  with  a  young  friend  of  her  stolid,  unkind  husband 
and,  for  honor's  sake,  diverts  the  youth's  attention  to 
another  woman. ^  This  event,  in  its  bald  outline,  has  no 
single  quality.  It  has  many  potential  qualities.  To 
name  only  two:  it  might  be  posed  as  as  to  bring  out  pre- 
dominantly the  animal  pliability  of  the  young  lover  in 
the  wife's  hands,  in  which  case  the  single  effect  would  be 
comedy,  mildly  cynical;  or  again,  it  might  be  turned  so  as 
to  throw  into  relief  the  tremendous  moral  courage  of  the 
wife,  who,  thoiMk  mismated  and  wretched,  rejects 
for  honor's  sake  ttiis  belated  chance  of  happiness;  and 
with  this  turn  pathos,  tragedy,  and  moral  exaltation  would 
stir  the  reader.  Now,  is  it  not  clear  that  the  incidents  you 
would  choose  to  tell  the  story  in  the  first  way  would  not  be 
the  incidents  which  you  would  pick  for  the  second  narra- 
tive? And  the  arrangements  would  differ  too.  We  com- 
monly say  that  'the  same  event'  is  either  pathetic  or  tragic 
or  ludicrous;  but  this  is  not  accurate.  It  is  more  accurate 
to  say  that  an  event  has  many  different  bearings  and 
relations,   and  that  these  latter,   taken  singly  and  ex- 

^  This  subject  has  lately  been  handled  with  sincerity  and  charm 
by  Fannie  Heaslip  Lea,  in  her  story,  entitled  Mrs.  Kilborn's  Sister. 
Harper's,  June,  1912. 


92  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

hibited  apart,  are  in  one  case  comic,  in  another  tragic, 
and  so  on.  So  it  is  that,  from  a  series  of  highly  intricate 
happenings,  the  writer  must  select  and  arrange  with  an 
eye  to  the  sentiment  or  mood  he  mshes  to  make  dominant. 


SECTION  II.      INTEGRATIVE  INTENSIFIERS 

If  the  remarks  of  the  preceding  section  are  correct,  they 
urge  the  writer  of  stories  to  busy  himself  with  all  the 
materials  and  relations  figuring  in  his  prospective  fiction 
and  to  seek  in  each  of  these  the  factors,  groupings,  and 
qualities  which  intensify  the  single  effect  he  is,  in  the 
particular  case,  aiming  at.  All  this  is  the  task  of  dis- 
covering integrators,  and  it  is,  I  shall  maintain,  the 
supreme  problem  of  technique.  To  it  we  now  address 
ourselves. 

1.  What  is  intensity?  It  is  worth  while  to  ask  just 
what  this  intensity  of  effect  is  which  the  story  teller  seeks. 
Singleness  of  effect  is  readily  comprehended;  but  I 
venture  to  say  that  few  persons  know  quite  what  they 
mean  by  the  adverb  when  they  say,  if^,  instance,  that  a 
story  is  'intensely'  pathetic.  Arid  yet,  in  the  clear  under- 
standing of  this  one  word  lies  the  key  to  many  mysteries 
of  technique.  Indeed,  I  think  we  may  safely  say  more: 
it  holds  the  master  key.  For  intensity  is  the  very  soul 
of  the  short  story,  distinguishing  it  from  the  novel  and 
most  lesser  forms  of  prose  narrative. 

There  is  at  least  one  characteristic  common  to  all  inten- 
sities, from  that  of  the  simplest  sense  impression  up  to  that 
of  enjoying  Ibsen.  Each  of  them  is  the  amount  of  a  certain 
quality  cognized  in  a  single  instant.  This  sounds  very 
abstruse,  but  it  is  a  fact  to  which  a  few  simple  observations 
readily  lead  any  one  who  will  take  pains  to  make  them. 
Suppose  you  listen  to  a  note  on  a  piano,  struck  now  softly 


WHAT  SHALL  YOU  SAY  ABOUT  IT?  93 

and  then  loudly.  You  say,  of  course,  that  the  second 
sound  is  more  intense  than  the  first;  and,  if  pressed  for  the 
meaning  of  your  judgment,  you  promptly  add  that  the 
louder  tone,  while  identical  with  the  softer  in  pitch,  timbre, 
and  other  qualities,  differs  from  it  in  that  it  is  somehow 
'bigger',  or  contains  more  of  the  pitch  and  timbre.  Or, 
again,  look  at  two  lights  of  precisely  the  same  shade  of 
red,  one  of  which  has  double  the  other's  brilliancy.  Do 
you  not  see  more  red  in  the  brighter?  Not  a  greater  area 
of  red,  to  be  sure,  but  rather  more  of  the  red  in  the  same 
area.  We  need  not  ask  here  how  a  color  can  be  packed 
more  thickly  or  thinly.  Leave  that  worry  to  the  physi- 
cists and  metaphysicians.  Enough  to  observe  it  is  packed, 
that  all  other  cognizable  qualities  also  are,  and  that  this 
peculiar  condensation  is  what  we  call  intensity.  With 
these  facts  in  hand,  we  may  look  at  the  more  intricate 
literary  instances  of  the  same  phenomenon. 

Insofar  as  the  artistic  effect  of  a  story  is  concerned,  a 
quality  is  present  to  us  just  as  long  as  its  specific  feeling- 
tone  lingers  in  our  consciousness,  influencing  our  mood  and 
the  course  of  our  thoughts.  For  it  is  this  feeling-tone 
and  not  the  full  presence  of  the  quality  itself,  that  counts 
in  shaping  our  impressions.  Touching  this  matter,  com- 
mon speech  is  quite  accurate  when  it  says,  of  an  evil  odor 
or  a  painful  thought  or  a  happy  discovery,  that  'it  stays 
with  us'  long  after  it  has  gone.  The  paradox  is,  like  most 
others,  merely  verbal;  the  fact  it  states  is  very  sure. 
Things  do  survive  in  their  own  effects. 

Heiice  it  is  that,  at  each  moment  of  our  lives,  a  multi- 
tude of  things  experienced  in  their  pristine  qualities  a 
long  time  before  is  tinging  all  our  sentiments.  What 
these  things  are  and  how  great  their  number  is,  nobody 
knows;  but  there  is  abundant  psychological  evidence  to 
prove  their  host  is  great.  The  brilliant  French  philoso- 
pher, Bergson,  believes  that  every  minutest  trifle  a  man 


94  SHORT   STORY   WRITING 

has  ever  experienced  'stays  with  him'  throughout  his 
entire  life;  and  this  is  not  so  absurd  as  it  first  seems. 
But,  once  more,  we  must  leave  that  sort  of  question  to  the 
scientists.  The  lesser  truth  is  quite  enough  for  us,  for  it 
discloses  the  origin  of  art's  most  potent  charms.  This 
origin  is  in  the  coming  together  of  many  similar  things  in  a 
single  apprehension. 

Each  thing  sets  up  its  own  definite  feeling  in  the  person 
apprehending  it;  and  similar  things  induce  similar  feelings. 
Now  let  these  feelings  occur  simultaneously,  and  the 
result  will  be  precisely  that  which  we  note  in  the  brighter 
light  and  the  louder  sound.  Each  complex  impression 
will  contain  more  of  one  and  the  same  quality,  and  this 
increase  will  be  the  quality  intensified.  Consider  the 
most  relevant  of  instances,  fictional  narrative,  and  let  us 
choose  the  most  conspicuously  intense  specimen  of  it, 
The  Fall  of  the  House  of  Usher.  The  opening  paragraph 
of  this  abnormal  fantasy  forms  a  single  impression,  b'y 
which  I  mean  that  the  reader  virtually  carries  it  all  in 
mind  at  once.  While  reading  the  last  phrases,  the  effects 
of  the  first  still  vibrate  in  him  with  horrible  vividness; 
hence,  in  his  own  consciousness,  the3p)icture  is  one  and 
instantaneous.  Now,  what  is  there  in  this  picture? 
What  feelings  are  awakened?  Well,  there  are  only  two 
which  sweep  through  the  whole  of  it;  insufferable  gloom 
and  mystery.  And  it  is  the  former  alone  which  is  intensi- 
fied with  that  incredible  excess  of  diabolical  skill  which 
places  Poe  forever  in  a  class  by  himself.  Look  away 
from  the  larger  ideas  of  the  passage;  look  only  at  the  items. 
In  the  first  twenty  lines,  we  come  upon  these  words :  dull, 
dark,  soundless,  autumn,  clouds,  oppressively,  low,  alone, 
dreary,  shades  of  evening,  melancholy,  insufferable  gloom, 
unrelieved,  sternest,  desolate,  terrible,  bleak,  vacant, 
utter  depression  of  soul,  hideous,  bitter  lapse,  iciness, 
sinking,  sickening,  unredeemed  dreariness,  goading,  tor- 


WHAT   SHALL  YOU   SAY   ABOUT   IT?  95 

ture.  .  .  .  One  word  in  every  six  throughout  the  passage 
thunders  the  mood  with  hypnotizing  iteration! 

Of  course,  their  mere  stringing  together  does  not  produce 
intense  gloom;  but  the  result  comes  when  they  are  all 
focussed  and  integrated  into  one  scene  or  episode  which  is 
readily  grasped  in  its  unity.  And  it  is  precisely  this 
focussing  and  integration  which  Poe  has  achieved,  and 
toward  which  every  writer  with  high  ideals  strives.  The 
learner's  duty  is  to  discern  those  manipulations  of  form 
and  material  which  focus,  integrate,  and  thus  intensify 
the  single  effect  of  dramatic  narrative. 

2.  The  general  rule  for  intensification.  If  intensity  is 
the  amount  of  a  given  quality  per  impression,  the  general 
method  of  intensifying  is  therewith  revealed.  We  may 
state  it  thus:  v^ 

Having  chosen  the  single  effect  which  is  to  he  stressed,  the 
writer  must  select  and  report  only  those  features  of  the  char- 
acters, the  setting  and  the  complication  which  produce  that 
effect.  And,  if  some  features  necessary  to  the  coherent  telling 
of  the  story  do  not  produce  the  effect,  they  must  he  reported 
as  colorlessly  as  possihle,  in  order  that  they  may  not  yield 
an  antagonistic  impression.  J/^ 

Here  we  have,  in  new  guise,  the  ancient  and  familiar 
rule  of  relevancy.  Usually  this  has  been  applied  chiefly 
to  argumentation,  and  lately  to  plot;  but  it  properly 
governs  absolutely  every  detail  of  narrative.  What  its 
dictates  are,  we  must  now  inquire. 

Every  element  of  a  story  may,  of  course,  serve  to 
heighten  the  total  effect.  But  there  are  five  kinds  which 
do  so  in  a  superlative  degree.     They  are: 

1.  The  dominant  character. 

2.  The  plot  action. 

3.  Ths  order  of  events. 


96  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

4.  The  point  of  view 

(a)  toward  the  story  {artistes  attitude). 

(b)  within  the  story  {angle  of  narration). 

5.  The  atmosphere. 

These  elements  demand  such  extensive  analyses  that 
each  must  be  discussed  in  a  separate  chapter. 


i 


THE  DOMINANT  CHARACTER  97 


SUB-CHAPTER  A. — THE   DOMINANT  CHARACTER 

In  handling  this  element,  we  have  to  bear  in  mind 

four  rules: 
r,^^  1.  Eliminate  every  trait  and  deed  which  does  not  help 
p.  peculiarly  to  make  the  character's  part  in  the  particular 

story  either  intelligible   or  more  open  to  such  sympathy 

as  it  merits. 

2.  Do  not  describe  a  trait  or  feature  or  other  peculiarity 
if  it  can  be  portrayed  in  action  that  is  relevant. 

3.  Paint  in  only  the  'high  lights';  that  is: 

a.  Never  employ  a  commonplace  or  merely  accurate 
incident  or  other  detail,  if  an  unusual  or  acutely  charac- 
teristic one  can  be  found  to  depict  the  same  trait  equally 
well. 

b.  Never  qualify  or  elaborate  a  trait  or  episode,  merely 
for  the  sake  of  preserving  the  effect  of  the  character's  full 
reality. 

4.  Depict  in  their  true  proportion  all  three  phases  of 
conduct,  namely,  i.  sensing  the  crucial  situation,  ii.  de- 
liberating over  its  solution,  and  Hi.  solving  it  by  decisive 
action. 

Comments  on  these. 

1.  This  rule  of  dramatic  economy  is  a  result  of  the 
peculiar  structural  limitations  of  the  short  story,  and 
marks  the  latter  off  most  sharply  from  the  novel.  Unlike 
the  novelist,  the  story-teller  makes  no  attempt  to  give  us 
a  panorama  of  life,  in  all  its  perplexing  intricacy  and 
fulness.  His  is  the  humbler  aim,  to  render  some  one 
little  scene  perfectly.  He  does  not  hang  together  all  his 
impressions,  conjectures,  and  wishes  about  the  world, 
weld  them  into  a  huge  Weltanschauung,  and  project 
them  into  language  in  the  form  of  a  story  about  an 


98  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

imaginary  society,  as  Balzac  did.  To  attempt  this 
through  the  short  story  would  be  as  foolish  as  to  try 
telling  the  history  of  the  United  States  in  one  sen- 
tence. 

The  ultimate  reason  for  the  rule  is  that  the  short 

V 

story  has  no  words  to  spare  for  non-essentials,  and  the 
only  essentials  in  its  character  drawing  are  intelligibility 
and  sympathetic  portrayal  of  the  one  trait  which  figures 
dramatically  in  it. 

>J  2.  The  second  rule  is  also  deduced  from  the  condi- 
tions set  by  the  double  ideal.  It  appears  most  clearly 
in  the  character  story.  The  single  effect  of  such  a 
story  is  produced  through  the  dominant  character.  Also, 
this  character  figures  conspicuously  in  the  action.  Now, 
the  intensest  effect  will  he  produced  if  the  character,  in  one 
and  the  same  deed,  both  exhibits  his  own  nature  relevantly 
and  advances  the  plot  action.  This  combination  is  the 
dramatic  one  par  excellence;  and  it  is  powerful,  not  be- 
cause it  is  drama,  but  because  it  is  intense.  And  it  is 
intense  in  that  it  produces  a  strong  effect  per  unit  im- 
pression.^ 

3.  The  rule  of  'high  lights'  puts  the  beginner  to  his 
severest  test.  He  usually  has  trouble  distinguishing  it 
from  the  rule  of  dramatic  economy;  and,  having  over- 
come this  difficulty,  he  encounters  still  greater  ones  in 
practicing  the  rule.  For  this,  I  fear,  critics  and  their 
text-books  are  largely  to  blame,  in  that  they  have  stressed 
overmuch  the  virtues  of  briefness  and  simplicity.  George 
Henry  Lewes,  for  instance,  makes  these  the  first  two 
of  what  he  calls  the  five  virtues  of  narrative  fiction  j^ 
Frank  Norris  urges  the  young  writer  to  contemplate  the 
wonderful  brevity  of  the  Bible  'stories';^  and  Esenwein 

^  Cf .  above,  on  the  nature  of  intensity. 
2  Principles  of  Success  in  Literature. 
'  The  Responsibilities  of  the  Novelist. 


THE  DOMINANT  CHARACTER        99 

assures  him  rather  vaguely  that  'compression  must 
pervade  the' whole  plot.'^  Did  these  (and  other)  writers 
elsewhere  call  attention  sharply  to  the  nature  and  tech- 
nique of  significant  characterization,  all  might  be  well. 
But  they  do  not.  The  result  is  that  the  learner  readily 
imagines  he  is  delineating  character  successfully  if  he 
says  the  fewest  possible  things  about  his  hero,  or  if, 
following  Esenwein,  he  ''seizes  upon  a  salient  charac- 
teristic and  makes  it  stand  for  the  whole,  leaving  the 
reader  to  fill  in  the  details  from  imagination."  ^ 

a.  Unfortunately,  'high  lights'  may  usually  be  rendered 
with  great  brevity  and  simple  speech;  and  so  people, 
misled  by  externals,  fail  to  distinguish  iheha  from  these, 
their  incidental  forms  of  expression.  It  is  easy  to  show, 
though,  that  it  is  neither  brevity  nor  simplicity  of  action 
which  brings  out  character. 

Let  us  suppose  that  we  are  to  depict  the  truthfulness 
of  Georgie  Washington.  We  write  as  follows  at  the 
crucial  situation: 

Mrs.  Washington  thrust  her  stately  head  out  of  the 
kitchen  window  and  gazed  thoughtfully  at  her  son: 
"Georgie!"  she  asked,  "have  you  given  the  cat  her 
cream  yet?"  Georgie,  in  the  very  act  of  pouring  the  thick 
fluid  into  Tabby's  saucer,  looked  his  mother  straight  in 
the  eye  and  answered  without  a  quaver:  "Yes,  mother! 
I  cannot  tell  a  lie!    I  have  fed  the  cat." 

It  is  greatly  to  be  feared  that  historians  would  not 
accept  this  as  overwhelming  proof  that  Georgie  was  con- 
stitutionally above  all  prevarication.  And  yet,  he  did 
tell  the  truth,  didn't  he?  You  observe  his  veracity  in 
action,  don't  you?  It  is  simple,  brief,  and  swift,  too, 
isn't  it?  It  therefore  possesses  the  virtues  which  the 
literary    authorities    call    for.     Evidently,    then,    these 

'  Writing  the  Short  Story. 
^Loc.  cit.,  232. 


J 


100  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

virtues  do  not  fill  the  bill.  And  we  see  what  they  lack, 
the  very  instant  we  contrast  the  above  effusion  with  the 
classical  narrative: 

''George!"  his  father  sternly  demanded,  as  he  con- 
templated the  prone  ruin  of  his  favorite  cherry  tree, 
''who  chopped  this  down?" 

"Father!"  spoke  up  George  firmly  and  without  hesita- 
tion, "  I  cannot  tell  a  lie.     I  did  it  with  my  little  hatchet." 

Now  the  youth  tells  the  trutl^  under  circumstances 
which  make  a  white  lie  much  more  comfortable  and  easy. 
A  dilemma  confronts  him;  either  he  must  sacrifice  the 
temporary  well-being  of  certain  peripheral  nerves  or 
else  he  must  offer  up  a  moral  ideal  on  the  altar  of  hedon- 
ism. And  his  conduct  in  this  crisis  shows  what  manner  of 
lad  he  is.  His  character  is  intelligible  and  open  to  our 
sjmapathy.  Thus  the  narrative  fulfils  the  first  two  rules 
of  integration.  But  the  third  rule  remains  to  be  obeyed. 
The  'high  lights'  have  not  been  turned  on.  The  story 
could  scarcely  be  delivered  with  intensely  dramatic 
effect.  Telling  the  painful,  perilous  truth  to  an  angry 
father  reveals  a  genuine  love  of  truth,  but  it  does  not 
force  us  to  believe  that  Georgie  is  the  incarnation  of 
probity.  It  is  not  inconceivable,  we  fear,  that  even  such 
an  exemplary  youth  might  swerve  from  accuracy,  for  a 
consideration — say  fifty  dollars.  In  other  words,  the 
crisis  over  the  cherry  tree,  genuine  and  earnest  though 
it  is,  lacks  the  gravity  necessary  to  show  the  hero  to  be 
through-and-through  truthful.  To  sketch  such  a  crisis 
would  be  to  turn  on  the  high  lights  of  dramatic  narrative. 
We  should  have  to  see  the  hero  in  some  desperate  predica- 
ment, where  truth  telling  would  jeopardize  his  dearest, 
deepest  wish  or  his  whole  future.  And  he  should  clearly 
sense  this  danger,  tremble  before  it,  and  yet  tell  the  truth. 

Let  us  put  the  matter  in  another  way.     It  is  not 


THE  DOMINANT  OHAW.CtTER  101 

enough  to  show  a  character  doing  something  consistent 
with  that  trait  which  you  seek  to  exhibit.  The  merely 
consistent  deed  does  not  persuade.  And  the  reason  for 
this  lies  imderneath  art;  it  is  imbedded  in  the  nature  of 
things.  The  merely  consistent  act,  of  itself,  is  logically 
incapable  of  proving  character.  Logically,  I  say.  And 
it  can  be  demonstrated,  thus: 

The  truthful  man  always  tells  the  truth  even  to  his 
own  injury. 

Georgie  once  told  the  truth  and  thereby  injured 
himself. 

Conclusion:  None. 

You  see  now,  I  trust,  why  a  random  consistent  deed 
is  unconvincing.  Once  is  not  always.  Therefore,  in 
order  that  we  may  be  persuaded  that  he  will  always 
do  so,  we  must  witness  him  telling  the  truth  under  circum- 
stances which  make  the  same  habit  easy  and  natural  for  him 
under  all  other  circumstances.  If  a  man  tells  the  truth 
when  doing  so  costs  him  a  dollar  loss,  he  may  not  do  so 
when  it  costs  him  a  himdred.  But  if  he  does  it  when  it 
costs  him  a  hundred,  we  are  sure  that  he  will  do  it  when  it 
costs  him  only  a  dollar.  This  is  no  subtle  esthetic  princi- 
ple peculiar  to  artistic  technique.  It  is  plain  common 
sense,  as  most  other  principles  will  turn  out  to  be,  once 
we  have  carefully  analyzed  them. 

Finally,  the  necessity  for  'high  lights'  is  strengthened 
by  the  fact  that  the  quality  of  the  information  we  have 
about  a  person  tends  to  penetrate  and  fuse  with  the  image 
of  the  person  which  we  build  up  out  of  this  information. 
If  we  know  only  petty  facts  about  a  man,  the  man  is 
in  danger  of  appearing  petty  to  us,  even  though  the  facts 
do  not  imply  such  a  character.  For  instance,  were  you 
to  say  that  Roosevelt's  teeth  gleam  as  large  and  as  numer- 
ously as  the  tombstones  of  his  political  enemies,  your 
hearers  would  never  quite  rid  themselves  of  this  de- 


102     ''  ''''"'.''  'iSHORT.  STORY  WRITING 

scription.  And  whoever  learned  only  such  trifles  would 
frame  a  picture  of  an  insignificant,  ridiculous,  or  con- 
temptible person. 

""  In  this,  once  more,  there  is  nothing  strange.  We  judge 
people  in  the  light  of  what  we  know  about  them.  That 
is  the  whole  secret,  the  only  secret.  It  is  because  of  this 
alone  that  one  may  damn  with  faint  praise.  It  is  be- 
cause of  this  alone  that  the  bravest  and  noblest  may 
easily  be  made  to  seem  ordinary  and  even  despicable 
not  by  lies  but  by  small  truths.  Washington  flirted 
scandalously  with  servant  girls,  Lincoln  was  at  times 
foul-mouthed,  Thomas  Aquinas  was  a  glutton;  and  so,  by 
citing  such  facts,  it  is  easy  for  any  shallow  iconoclast  to 
make  his  dupes  believe  these  great  men  were  of  the  com- 
monest clay.  And  this  possibility  becomes  a  peril  to  the 
literary  artist  who  thinks  only  of  accuracy  and  consistent 
character  drawing. 
.  The  artistic  material  is  that  which  persuades;  and  the 
persuasive  is  not  the  merely  true  or  consistent,  but  rather 
the  acutely  characteristic,  namely  that  which  unequivo- 
cally reveals  a  nature  which  can  be  counted  on  to  be 
constant  under  all  circumstances.  The  discovery  of 
such  decisive  marks  is  almost  a  science  by  itself,  a  science 
moreover  in  which  few  are  versed.  Do  you  know  what 
is  the  sure  test  of  a  coward?  Or  of  a  spoiled  child? 
Or  of  a  dreamer?  Or  of  a  hypocrite?  Or  of  a  crue^ 
man?  Or  of  a  flirt?  Or  of  a  saint?  Can  you  describe  a 
situation  in  which  any  one  of  these  characters  discloses 
itself  past  all  misunderstanding?  If  so,  you  can  write  a 
powerful  short  story. 

x^  b.  The  second  rule  of  'high  lights'  is  little  more  than 
a  corollary  of  the  first.  Young  writers  are  steeped  in 
the  superstition  that,  for  reality's  sake,  they  must  ex- 
plain who  the  hero's  grandparents  were,  how  he  came  to 
live  in  the  town,  why  he  went  to  work  in  the  shirt  factory, 


THE  DOMINANT  CHARACTER        103 

where  he  first  met  his  beloved,  and  all  the  other  incidents 
prior  to  the  climax.  The  sufficient  answer  to  this  mis- 
belief has  been  given:  most  of  those  episodes  are  petty, 
in  comparison  with  the  plot,  and  hence,  if  told,  will 
inevitably  dilute  the  latter  wofully;  and,  secondly,  they 
are  not  characteristic  of  any  trait  that  develops  in  the* 
plot,  and  hence  do  not  persuade  the  reader  of  anything 
in  particular. 

(4)  The  last  rule  of  character  drawing,  to  which  we  now 
come, 'is  by  all  odds  the  most  important.  It  is  also  the 
one  which  demands,  for  its  understanding,  the  maturest 
insight.  Merely  to  explain  it  is  to  write  a  short  Essay  on 
Man. 

a.  The  mark  of  human  nature.  Philosophers  used  to 
say  that  the  soul  of  man  was  a  trinity,  whose  members 
were  feeling,  intellect,  and  will.  Each,  said  they,  was 
ultimate,  irreducible,  and  unique.  Feeling  was  not  a 
kind  of  thinking,  nor  was  thinking  a  species  of  volition. 
For  all  their  difference,  however,  all  three  faculties  worked 
in  wonderful  unison;  and  the  problem  of  life  was  the 
problem  of  balancing  their  activities. 

Modern  science  discards  this  pretty  scheme,  but  it 
preserves  its  truth.  (^Today  we  recognize  that  man  is  an 
organism  which  adjusts  itself  in  many  manners  tolvicissi- 
tudesJ  and  that  what  marks  him  off  nwst  sharply  from  all 
other  animals  is  his  reflective  foresight.)  The  ape  has  feel- 
ings, and  the  ape  acts;  but  between  his  feelings  and  his 
conduct  there  is  little  or  no  control.  The  creature  does 
not  check  and  postpone  his  impulsive  responses,  in  order 
to  consider  whether  they  will  redound  to  his  own  future 
good.  Nor  does  he  seek  out  the  consequences  of  an 
impending  act  and  anticipate  its  pleasure  or  pain.  But 
this  is  the  very  gist  of  human  life.  Insofar  as  a  man  acts 
on  impulse,  he  is  not  exhibiting  the  power  which  dis- 
tinguishes him  from  lower  animals.     Of  course,  he  may 


104  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

be  a  man  in  a  purely  zoological  sense,  even  though  he 
habitually  fails  to  ponder  and  look  ahead;  just  as  he 
might  be  a  biped,  though  paralyzed  in  both  legs.  But 
he  would  impress  nobody  as  human.  We  should  say  of 
him:  ''What  a  brute!"  And  the  epithet  would  not  be 
poetic  license,  but  sober  fact. 

l^ow,  when  we  speak  of  character,  we  refer  to  just  this 
same  reflective  foresight  in  its  actual  operations.  There 
is  no  difference  between  human  character  and  the  charac- 
teristically human.  To  be  sure,  the  former  phrase  is 
often  used  eulogistically,  whereas  the  latter  has  a  cold, 
scientific  sound;  but  this  is  a  mere  accident  of  language. 
It  is  impossible  to  lay  a  finger  upon  a  quality  which  is 
included  within  the  one  and  not  within  the  other.  Di- 
gesting meat  is  not  a  power  of  human  character,  for  it  is 
not  characteristically  human.  Singing  is  not  an  affair 
of  human  character,  for  larks  and  cuckoos  sing.  Having 
feelings  and  emotions  is  not  a  sign  of  human  character 
for  certainly  dogs  and  cats  fall  into  a  panic,  know  jealousy, 
and  there  runs  through  some  of  them  even  a  queer  little 
shred  of  loyalty. 

b.  Analysis  of  character.  Let  us  analyze  briefly  the  con- 
duct of  one  endowed  with  this  imique  reflective  foresight. 
We  find  that  there  are  three  stages  in  it.  First,  a  man 
finds  himself  in  a  situation  which  makes  trouble  for  him; 
and  he  must  sense  this  trouble  feelingly.  He  may  be 
thwarted  in  a  desire,  or  brought  into  pain.  Secondly,  he 
plans  to  escape  the  difficulty;  and,  in  planning,  he  looks 
ahead  to  the  probable  outcome  of  each  project  which  he 
considers.  Against  his  private  wishes  he  weighs  the  effects 
of  gratifying  them.  Against  the  demands  of  other 
people  he  sets  what  he  deems  to  be  his  rights.  Against 
his  own  bad  habits  he  arrays  his  better  knowledge. 
Having  done  this,  he  finishes  off  the  affair  with  a  de- 
cisive act.     And  it  is  this  act  which,  when  judged  in  the 


THE  DOMINANT  CHARACTER        105 

light  of  the  circumstances,  reveals  the  precise  degree  and 
quality  of  control  which  the  man's  reflective  mind  ex- 
ercises over  his  career.     The  character  of  this  man  is\ 
nothing  more  nor  less  than  the  management  of  just  these 
hiter-playing    impulses,    appetites,    feelings,    foresights,  / 
and  arguments.     In  his  adjustment  of  these  forces,  hy 
shows  himself  as  in  no  other  way.^ 

Let  us  call  these  three  stages  of  rational  behavior 
respectively  the  immediate  response  to  the  difficulty, 
the  refiective  delay,  and  the  active  solution.  We  may 
now  state  a  little  more  formally  the  fundamental  fact 
about  them  which  gives  form  and  body  to  the  whole 
technique  of  character  drawing: 

Character,  being  the  particular  proportion  and  relation  of 
these  three  activities,  is  not  determined  by  any  one  or  two  of 
them.  Hence,  to  depict  it  unambiguously,  all  three  must 
he  shown  in  their  particular  relation  under  the  given. cir- 
cumstances.^ 

Or,  to  put  the  case  more  bluntly;  the  finest  analysis  of 
a  hero's  emotions  and  yearnings  will  not  tell  us  decisively 
what  manner  of  man  he  is,  nor  will  his  thoughts  do  so, 
nor  will  his  deeds  alone.  To  demonstrate  this  and  at 
the  same  time  to  show  that  perfect  character  drawing 
involves  the  three-phase  integration  just  described,  I 
shall  cite  a  few  passages  from  Maupassant's  little  master- 
piece, A  Coward,  which  the  student  should  carefully 
review  at  this  point. 

The  three  phases  here  are  very  obvious.  The  insult 
passed  to  the  viscount's  guests  gives  rise  at  once  to  the 
dramatic  difficulty,  and  to  this  difficulty  the  viscount 

^For  an  exhaustive  analysis  of  this  performance,  read  John 
Dewey's  How  We  Think  and  Dewey  and  Tufts'  Ethics  (Henry  Holt, 
1908) ;  especially  chapters  3  and  10  of  the  latter  book. 

^An  important  qualification  of  this  rul^  will  soon  be  noted; 
cf.  112. 


106  SHORT   STORY  WRITING 

responds  immediatel3^  This  response  gives  rise  to  a 
further  complication,  the  challenge.  Then  begins  the 
reflective  delay,  during  which  the  viscount's  impulses, 
feelings,  notions  of  propriety,  anticipations,  and  unsus- 
pected physical  reactions  fight  among  themselves  for  the 
control  of  the  decisive  solution  of  his  difficulty.  At  the 
height  of  their  battle,  one  wins;  and  the  act  comes  in  a 
twinkling.  Here  are  some  illuminating  incidents  from 
each  phase: 

The  immediate  response. 

The  young  woman  continued,  half  smiling,  half  vexed: 
^It  is  very  unpleasant.     That  man  is  spoiling  my  ice.' 

The  husband  shrugged  his  shoulders:  'Pshaw!    Don't 
pay  any  attention  to  him.     .      .      . ' 

The  viscount  had  risen  abruptly.  He  could  nort 
suffer  that  stranger  to  spoil  an  ice  which  he  had  offered. 
.  He  walked  toward  the  man  and  said:  'You 
have  a  way  of  looking  at  those  ladies,  monsieur,  which  I 
cannot  tolerate.  I  beg  you  to  be  so  kind  as  to  stare  less 
persistently.'  .  .  .  The  gentleman  answered  but 
one  word,  a  foul  word.  .  .  .  Profound  silence 
ensued.  Suddenly  a  sharp  sound  cracked  in  the  air. 
The  Viscount  had  slapped  his  adversary.  Everyone, 
rose  to  interfere.   Cards  were  exchanged  between  the  two. 

The  reflective  delay. 

When  the  viscount  had  returned  to  his  apartment,  he 
paced  the  floor  for  several  minutes  with  great,  quick 
strides.  He  was  too  much  agitated  to  reflect.  A  single 
thought  hovered  over  his  mind — 'a  duel' — without 
arousing  any  emotion  whatsoever.  .  .  .  Then  he 
sat  down  and  began  to  consider.  He  must  find  seconds 
in  the  morning.  Whom  should  he  choose?  . 
He  discovered  that  he  was  thirsty,  and  he  drank  three 
glasses  of  water  in  rapid  succession.  Then  he  resumed 
his  pacing  of  the  floor.  He  felt  full  of  energy.  If  he 
blustered  a  Httle,  seemed  determined  to  carry  the  thing 
through,  demanded  rigorous  and  dangerous  conditions, 
insisted  upon  a  serious  duel,  very  serious  and  terrible,  his 
adversary  would  probably  back  down  and  apologize. 


THE  DOMINANT  CHARACTER       107 

•  He  picked  up  the  card.  .  .  .  'Georges  Lamil, 
51  Rue  Moncey.'  Nothing  more.  He  examined  these 
assembled  letters,  which  seemed  to  him  mysterious, 
full  of  vague  meaning.  Georges  Lamil!  Who  was  this 
man?  What  was  his  business?  Why  had  he  stared  at  the 
lady  in  such  a  way?  .  .  .  There  arose  within  him 
a  fierce  anger  against  that  bit  of  paper — a  malevolent 
sort  of  rage  blended  with  a  strange  feeling  of  discomfort. 
What  a  stupid  business!  He  took  a  penknife  that  lay 
open  to  his  hand  and  stuck  it  through  the  middle  of  the 
printed  name,  as  if  he  were  stabbing  some  one. 

The  active  solution. 

So  he  was  really  going  to  fight!  It  was  no  longer 
possible  for  him  to  avoid  it.  What  on  earth  was  taking 
place  within  him?  He  wanted  to  fight;  his  purpose  and 
determination  to  do  so  were  firmly  fixed;  and  yet  he 
knew  full  well  that,  despite  all  the  effort  of  his  mind  and 
all  the  tension  of  his  will,  he  would  be  unable  to  retain 
even  the  strength  necessary  to  take  him  to  the  place  of 
meeting. 

From  time  to  time  his  teeth  chattered  with  a  little  dry 
noise.  He  tried  to  read,  and  took  up  Chateauvillard's 
duelling  code     .     .     . 

As  he  passed  a  table,  he  opened  the  case  by  Gastinne 
Renette,  took  out  one  of  the  pistols,  and  then  stood  as  if 
he  were  about  to  fire,  and  raised  his  arm.  But  he  was 
trembling  from  head  to  foot,  and  the  barrel  shook  in 
all  directions. 

Then  he  said  to  himself:  'It  is  impossible.  I  cannot 
fight  like  this!' 

He  regarded  the  little  hole,  black  and  deep,  at  the  end 
of  the  barrel,  the  hole  that  spits  out  death.  He  thought 
of  the  dishonor,  of  the  whispered  comments  at  the  clubs, 
of  the  laughter  in  the  salons,  of  the  disdain  of  the  women, 

He  continued  to  gaze  at  the  weapon,  and,  as  he  raised 
the  hammer,  he  saw  the  priming  glitter  beneath  it  like 
a  little  red  flame.  .  .  .  And  he  experienced  a  con- 
fused, inexplicable  joy  thereat. 

If  he  did  not  display  in  the  other's  presence  the  calm 
and  noble  bearing  suited  to  the  occasion,  he  would  be  lost 
forever.     .      .      .     And    that    calm    and    bold    bearing 


108  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

he  could  not  command — he  knew  it,  he  felt  it.  And  yet 
he  was  really  brave,  because  he  wanted  to  fight!  He  was 
brave,  because — The  thought  that  grazed  his  mind  was 
never  completed;  opening  his  mouth  wide,  he  suddenly 
thrust  the  barrel  of  the  pistol  into  the  very  bottom  of  his 
throat  and  pressed  the  trigger. 

So  closely  does  Maupassant  cling  to  the  pure  psycholog- 
ical truth  here  that  many  readers  find  the  marvelous  little 
story  bald  and  hard.  There  is  no  sympathy  in  it;  if  it 
leads  you  to  feel  sorry  for  the  poor  viscount,  it  does  so 
by  its  brute  facts,  not  by  any  persuasion  from  the  author. 
But  it  is  just  this  crystalline  accuracy  that  makes  A 
Coward  a  perfect  model  for  students  to  contemplate. 
The  phases  of  character  expansion  are  as  sharply  limned, 
the  one  from  its  next,  as  the  acts  of  a  play. 

Let  us  see  how  the  story  would  have  worked  out,  had 
Maupassant  neglected  some  phase.  Suppose,  first  of 
all,  that  he  had  not  told  us  anything  definite  about  the 
viscount's  immediate  response  to  the  provoking  situation. 
Well,  that  would  have  virtually  halted  the  telling  of  the 
tale;  for  it  was  the  viscount's  spontaneous  resentment  of 
the  stranger's  impudence  that  brought  on  the  challenge. 
Not  to  tell  what  the  viscount  did  would  rob  the  story  of 
the  very  incident  which  sets  it  going.  This  is  not  an 
accidental  complication  of  this  particular  plot.  It 
occurs  in  all  stories  of  character,  in  greater  or  less  degree. 
Perhaps  it  would  be  more  accurate  to  say  that  its  oc- 
currence brings  the  character  intimately  into  the  plot 
action  and  so  makes  a  character  story.  In  this  case  the 
immediate  response  belongs  to  the  narrative  by  definition. 

Now  suppose  that  Maupassant  had  told  us  all  about 
the  encounter  in  the  restaurant  and  also  about  the 
viscount's  suicide,  but  not  a  word  about  his  wonderings 
and  waverings,  his  strange  access  of  panic,  his  half- 
crazed  dreams  about  the  outcome  of  his  grim  misad- 


THE  DOMINANT  CHARACTER        109 

venture,  his  schemes  to  rob  it  of  its  peril.  What  then 
of  the  story?  To  answer  this  question,  you  have  only 
to  read  the  original,  omitting  the  passages  which  sketch 
the  reflective  delay.  So  manipulated,  the  events  shrink 
to  a  mere  episode  not  a  little  obscure.  A  diner  who 
stares  at  the  viscount's  guests  is  asked  to  mind  his  man- 
ners. He  retorts  insultingly,  and  the  viscount  slaps  him. 
The  duel  is  arranged,  the  viscount  chooses  his  weapon 
and  his  seconds.  The  latter  call  on  him,  settle  the  details 
of  the  contest,  and  go.  A  few  minutes  later,  his  valet 
rushes  in,  alarmed  by  the  report  of  a  gun,  and  finds  him 
dead;  and  beside  him  on  the  table  a  paper  bearing  only 
these  four  words:  Hhis  is  my  Will'. 

That  is  a  mystery  story,  isn't  it?  And  an  ill-hung  one 
too,  for  it  does  not  solve  the  puzzle  of  the  viscount's 
suicide.  What  has  happened,  anyhow?  The  viscount  is 
plainly  a  bold,  firm  man.  Did  he  not  walk  straight  up 
to  the  insulter  in  the  restaurant?  Did  he  not  accept 
the  fellow's  card?  Did  he  not  insist  upon  the  most  serious 
form  of  duel?  Did  his  seconds  not  find  him  calm?  Well, 
then!  there's  something  behind  all  this  affair,  something 
dark  and  wicked!  Perhaps  Georges  Lamil  was  the  prodigal 
brother  of  the  viscount's  guest,  and  the  lady  begged  the 
viscount  to  break  off  the  duel  and  save  her  family  from 
notoriety.  Perhaps  the  fellow  was  a  hired  assassin — 
or  maybe  the  affair  was  all  a  hoax,  to  test  the  viscount's 
courage,  and  the  viscount,  discovering  it,  was  humiliated. 

Or — ^but  there  are  as  many  guesses  as  there  are  readers, 
and  every  one  of  them  remains  unsubstantiated.  We 
sha)l  never  know  whether  the  viscount  was  a  hero  or  a 
coward  or  the  victim  of  persecution  or  the  butt  of  a 
ghastly  practical  joke  or  something  else. 

Finally,  suppose  that  Maupassant  had  said  nothing 
about  the  viscount's  \cojxsummating  deed.  Suppose  the 
story  had  ended  at  the  point  where  the  man,  having 


110  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

picked  up  a  pistol  and  aimed  it  across  the  room,  found 
himself  trembling  from  head  to  foot,  and  then  cried: 
"It  is  impossible.  I  cannot  fight  like  this!"  Surely  the 
story  would  now  be  mutilated  less  than  in  either  of  the 
preceding  cases.  We  should  at  least  perceive  the  vis- 
count's physical  cowardice,  and  we  should  conjecture 
that  he  withdrew  from  the  duel  and  was  disgraced  thereby. 
But  we  should  not  be  absolutely  sure  that  he  was  as 
weak  as  he  felt  himself  to  be,  nor  that  he  did  not  walk 
into  the  duel,  when  the  appointed  hour  came,  no  less 
firmly  than  he  approached  his  insulter  in  the  restaurant. 
And  why  shouldn't  we?  Simply  because  we  know  that  a 
man's  feelings  and  emotions  are  not  the  infallible  weather- 
vanes  of  conduct.  They  are  peculiarly  untrustworthy 
symptoms  of  bravery  and  cowardice.  The  most  coura- 
geous hero,  for  instance,  is  not  the  man  who  does  not  know 
fear.  Such  a  fellow  is  a  dolt,  whereas  he  who  commands 
our  admiration  is  the  one  who,  being  wracked  with 
thoughts  of  the  danger  before  him,  nevertheless  nerves 
himself  to  meet  it.  So  too  with  the  coward.  It  is  not 
what  he  feels  that  shows  him  up;  it  is  what  he  does  after 
reflection.  However  ill  the  thought  of  an  approaching 
duel  may  make  him,  that  does  not  brand  him.  But  let 
him  dodge  the  consequences  of  the  accepted  challenge; 
let  him  flee  not  only  his  adversary  but  even  the  painful 
gossip  that  his  behavior  will  bring  down  upon  him,  and 
there  you  have  the  finished  and  unmistakable  type. 

We  have  sketched  the  elementary  pattern  of  human 
conduct,  but  we  have  not  indicated  the  source  nor  the 
nature  of  its  perpetual  novelty  and  immeasurable  variety. 
A  profitable  study  of  these  would  carry  us  far  beyond  the 
purposes  of  this  book,  so  I  shall  merely  suggest  a  few 
leading  facts  which  the  writer  of  character  stories  must 
keep  in  mind. 

The  profoundest  difference  between  man  and  man  ap- 


THE  DOMINANT  CHARACTER        111 

pears  ii?  the  balance  and  magnitude  of  forces  at  work 
during  the  reflective  delay.  In  this  stage  of  the  dramatic 
struggle  the  battle  is  doubtless  fought  and  won,  though 
the  victory  does  not  appear  to  the  observer — ^nor,  often 
enough,  to  the  man  himself — until  the  decisive  act  has 
been  consummated.  Now,  the  palm  is  awarded  to  one 
of  three  contestants  :i  to  impulse,  to  feeling,  or  to  reason. 
And  the  particular  manner  in  which  the  victorious  force 
gains  the  ascendency  gives  us  insight  into  the  soul  of  the 
particular  man.  In  A  Coward  this  three-cornered 
contest  is  beautifully  clear.  Consider  this  passage,  which 
is  typical  of  the  entire  story: 

"I  must  be  firm,''  he  said.  "He  will  be  afraid." 
{Reasoning.)  The  sound  of  his  voice 'made  him  tremble, 
and  he  looked  about  him.  {Feeling,  followed  by  an  im- 
pulse.) He  drank  another  glass  of  water,  then  began 
to  undress  for  bed.  {Impulse.)  .  .  .  He  thought: 
"I  have  all  day  tomorrow  to  arrange  my  affairs.  I  must 
sleep  now,  so  that  I  may  be  calm."  {Reasoning.)  He 
was  very  warm  under  the  bed  clothes,  but  he  could  not 
manage  to  doze  off.  ...  He  was  still  very  thirsty. 
{Feeling.)  He  got  up  again  to  drink.  {Impulse.)  Then 
a  disquieting  thought  occurred  to  him:  ''Can  it  be  that 
I  am  afraid?" 

Why  did  his  heart  begin  to  beat  wildly  at  every  familiar 
sound  in  the  room?     {Reasoning.) 

Notice  how  each  power  tries  in  turn  to  master  the 
viscount,  and  how  your  own  interest  centres  about  the 
steady, .  insidious  onrush  of  the  purely  physical  collapse 
and  the  last  desperate  stand  which  the  poor  man's  reason 
makes  against  it.  It  is  in  just  such  conflicts  that  the 
character  story  has  its  being. 

^  The  reader  versed  in  psychology  will  please  skim  this  descrip- 
tion with  an  indulgent  eye.  It  is  a  rough  outline  of  the  truth. 
For  pedagogy's  sake,  I  trust  that  it  is  permissible  to  speak  of 
impulse,  feeling,  and  reason  as  though  they  were  independent  enti- 
ties, instead  of  interlocking  processes. 


112  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

The  reader  will  easily  observe  that  the  three  factors 
of  this  conflict  resemble  more  or  less  those  of  the  wider 
situation  wherein  reflective  delay  is  the  second  phase. 
The  immediate  response  is  commonly  rich  in  emotional 
flavor;  the  reflective  delay  itself  is  essentially  rational, 
even  though  reason  does  not  always  win  out;  and  the 
active  solution  is  inevitably  impulsive  in  some  degree, 
just  because  it  is  an  act  of  will.  This  parallelism  m 
not  a  freak  of  nature;  any  psychologist  will  explain  more 
clearly  than  is  here  possible  how  this  circumstance  is 
due  to  the  very  nature  of  the  reflective  delay,  which  is, 
as  I  have  said,  nothing  but  the  arena  wherein  all  the 
forces  of  human  nature  meet  in  combat.  For  lis,  how- 
ever, the  literary -aspect  of  the  fact  is  more  significant. 
Briefly,  it  is  this: 

The  pattern,  or  static  structure,  of  a  character  can  he 
adequately  depicted  by  the  interplay  of  forces  within  the 
reflective  delay.  But  the  proof  of  the  pattern,  the  full 
dramatic  evidence  of  its  existence  and  power  in  the  par- 
ticular person,  appears  in  the  active  solution  that  follows 
the  reflective  delay. 

This  is  a  very  important  qualification  of  the  rule 
laid  down  above.  ^  And  it  has  a  bearing  upon  the  most 
modern,  most  highly  praised  mode  of  fiction,  the  so- 
called  'psychological  story \ 

The  psychological  story  is  one  which  analyzes  the  feel- 
ings, thoughts,  and  impulses  of  its  leading  characters 
more  minutely  than  does  the  ordinary  dramatic  story, 
which  is  content  to  describe  only  as  much  as  might 
normally  appear  to  the  eye  and  ear  of  a  possible  spectator. 
In  another  chapter  we  shall  discuss  the  advantages  and 
disadvantages  of  the  analytical  technique  ;2  at  present 
let  us  note  only  the  danger  of  substituting  analysis  for 

1  Cf.  105. 

2  Cf.  the  section  on  point  of  view. 


THE  DOMINANT  CHARACTER        113 

drama.  This  is  a  very  real  peril  today,  though  perhaps 
less  so  than  in  the  eighties,  when  Henry  James  was 
heralded  as  the  discoverer  of  the  real  and  the  ultimate 
in  literature.  At  bottom  the  danger  is  precisely  the 
one  which  we  have  suggested  in  the  above  inspection 
of  Maupassant's  story.  It  is  the  danger  of  letting  the 
thought  do  duty  for  the  deed;  that  is,  substituting  for  the 
real  course  of  events  the  hero's  stream  of  consciousness. 
To  explain  this  substitution,  we  must  make  another  brief 
but  arduous  excursion  into  psychology. 

Nature  is  nowhere  more  prodigal  than  in  mental  life. 
She  produces  millions  more  little  fish  than  can  ever 
survive  in  the  sea;  and  she  gives  birth  to  hundreds  of 
millions  of  sensations,  feelings,  and  imageries  which 
can  never  develop  and  become  dominant  in  the  directing 
of  men's  lives.  You  become  aware  of  this,  the  instant 
you  observe  accurately  what  is  going  on  in  your  mind. 
Swift,  ^  evanescent,  and  immeasurably  complex  is  the 
flux;  arid  its  items  of  an  instant  baffle  the  acutest  intro- 
spective cataloguer.  Now,  this  fact  is,  of  itself,  enough 
to  prove  that,  when  we  think  about  a  certain  matter,  we 
do  not  think  in  terms  of  these  elusive  and  microscopical 
'mental  states'.  These  are,  on  the  contrary,  nothing 
more  than  our  manipulations  in  adjusting  ourselves  to  the 
situation  which  concerns  us.  They  bear  the  same  rela- 
tion to  thinking  as  the  tugging  of  a  slack-wire  walker's 
muscles  do  to  the  task  of  keeping  his  balance.  They 
are  responses  to  the  conditions  of  the  pressing  problem;  they 
are  neither  the  conditions  nor  the  character  which  responds. 

The  literary  artist,  though,  is  interested  in  the  dramatic 
aspect  of  human  conduct,  not  in  the  mechanism  of  its 
activity.  The  latter  falls  to  the  professional  scientist; 
to  the  psychological  expert  and  the  physiologist.  Its 
truthful  portraiture  affords  no  greater  opportunity  for 
fine  narrative  writing  than  does  an  account  of  the  slack- 


114  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

wire  walker's  muscle  play.^  As  Aristotle  saw,  the 
objects  of  the  artist  are  always  *men  in  action'.  But  a 
gush  of  'mental  states'  is  no  more  a  man  in  action  than 
a  series  of  writhings  is.  Action  may  be  the  result  of 
many  sensations  and  writhings;  but,  even  then,  it  has  a 
singleness,  a  direction,  and  a  purpose  which  these,  its 
mechanical  factors,  altogether  lack.  We  are  nearer  to 
human  conduct  when  we  see  Smith  knock  down  a 
hoodlum  who  has  insulted  him  than  we  are  when  a 
scientific  observer  enumerates  to  us  the  fifty-seven 
varieties  of  naughty  thoughts  which  the  insult  sent 
flitting  through  Smith's  consciousness.  To  be  sure,  we 
are  not  thus  brought  to  an  understanding  of  conduct, 
if  by  understanding  we  mean  a  knowledge  of  causes. 
But  it  is  not  the  artist's  business  to  furnish  that.  He  is 
asked  to  sketch  only  the  broad  movement  and  tr^id  in 
their  decisive  and  illuminating  manifestations  The 
single  effect,  the  impressive  unity  of  somebody's  behavior, 
is  his  ideal;  and,  to  render  this,  he  must  abstain  from  mak- 
ing perceptible  in  the  action  what  is  imperceptible  to  the 
ordinary  competent  observer;  and  from  making  dramatically 
conspicuous  what  has  little  or  no  efficiency.  For  of  just 
this  succession  of  visible  and  crucial  events  does  dramatic 
action  consist. 

Dangerous  as  are  most  analogies  between  the  arts,  I 
cannot  resist  comparing  the  writings  of  the  extreme 
psychological  school  to  the  Dutch  microscopical  paintings. 
Those  freakish  little  canvases  on  which  we  see  every 
mesh  of  a  fly's  wing  and  every  individual  hair  in  the 
down  of  a  peach  betray  a  confusion  of  science  with  art 
in  their  maker's  mind.     The  correct  aim  of  the  painter 

1  The  difference  between  scientific  and  artistic  writing  here  indi- 
cated is  absolute.  It  springs  from  a  difference  in  aims.  But  this 
does  not  mean  that  scientific  writing  must  be  inartistic  in  the  sense 
of  being  obscure  and  clumsy. 


THE  DOMINANT  CHARACTER  115 

is  to  present  some  visible  aspect  of  some  real  or  imaginary 
object.  He  is  free  to  omit  much  that  is  visible,  if  by  so 
doing  he  vivij&es  significantly  the  remainder,  as  Corot 
does  with  the  blues  and  grays  and  Rembrandt  with  the 
browns  and  yellows.  But  he  has  no  right  to  introduce 
the  invisible.  This  the  Dutch  microscopist  does  though 
when  he  inserts  into  the  scene,  not  what  men  perceive 
of  the  fly  and  the  peach  but  what  wing  and  down  '  really' 
are.  The  result  must  have  bewildered  the  good  man, 
for  it  is  singularly  dead  and  unreal  to  the  eye.  You 
might  fancy  that  Alice  would  have  seen  the  like  of  it, 
had  she  gone  through  a  magnifying  glass  instead  of 
through  the  looking  glass.  His  fly  and  peach  are  not 
of  our  world. 

Precisely  this  effect  is  all  too  easily  produced  in  fiction 
by  elaborately  conscientious  analysis  of  the  hero's  con- 
sciousness. *^h.e  reader  is  forced  to  notice  many  minute 
impressions  and  impulses  which  neither  mould  nor  ad- 
vance the  action  at  all  and  hence  do  not  truly  charac- 
terize, but  only  blur,  the  significance  of  the  portrayed 
conduct. 

^^here  is  another  serious  misunderstanding  about 
the  so-called  'psychological  story'  which  mars  at  times 
even  the  writings  of  veterans.  I  have  wondered  to  what 
extent  we  ought  to  put  the  blame  of  it  upon  the  lexi- 
cographer who  defines  *  psychological'  as  meaning  *of 
or  pertaining  to  the  human  soul  and  its  operations'. 
Certainly  it  is  just  this  loose,  all-inclusive  notion  which 
confuses  technique.  A  story  would,  according  to  it,  be 
psychological  if  it  'pertained'  in  any  way  to  somebody's 
'mental  states'.  And  so  many  writers  fancy  themselves 
dipping  deep  into  the  abysses  of  the  soul  when  they  write 
as  follows:  'It  flashed  across  her  troubled  mind',  'on  his 
mental  horizon  a  black  doubt  arose',  'a  pang  of  regret 


116  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

smote  him',  'the  lad  wondered  long,  weighmg  all  the 
direful  possibilities  of  his  thought',  and  so  on. 

Such  allusions,  though,  do  not  make  literature  psycho- 
logical. They  are  as  powerless  to  do  that  as  loud  curses 
and  piercing  shrieks  are  powerless  to  make  an  adventure 
story.  Curses  and  shrieks  are  merely  the  effects  of  some 
adventurous  encounter;  and,  being  such,  they  may  aid  in 
expressing  its  poignancy.  Indicating  somebody's  reac- 
tion to  the  adventure,  they  come  to  indicate  by  indirec- 
tion the  quality  of  the  adventure  itself.  They  hint  at 
a  character's  point  of  view  toward  the  latter.  And  this 
is  all  that  is  accomplished  by  the  mental  horizons,  pangs, 
wondering,  and  weighing  on  mental  scales  about  which 
pseudo-psychological  writers  amplify.  They  tell  a  story 
by  telling  us  how  its  episodes  impress  some  witness  or 
participant. 

Now,  it  often  happens  that  the  episodes  themselves 
are  no  more  psychological  than  a  thunderstorm  or  the 
flight  of  a  bird.  The  hero  may  be  caught  in  a  jam  on  the 
Subway,  or  the  heroine  be  spattered  with  mud  by  a  pass- 
ing automobile.  Furthermore,  it  may  be  that  the  crowd 
of  travelers  or  the  racing  chauffeur  figures  in  the  action 
of  the  story,  while  the  hero's  sensations  and  the  heroine's 
thoughts  do  not.  In  such  a  case,  the  reader's  attention 
need  not  be  dra^vn  to  these  mental  states,  except  insofar  as 
they  alone  can  make  clear  the  relevant  happenings. 

The  genuine  psychological  story  uses  'mental  states' 
in  a  different  way.  They  are  not  its  language;  they  are 
its  subject  matter.  The  working  of  some  human  trait  is 
depicted,  as  any  simple  adventure  or  love  affair  might 
be.  Maupassant's  A  Piece  of  String,  Henry  James' 
The  Liar,  and  Mrs.  Wharton's  The  Daunt  Diana  typify 
this  undertaking.  The  first  shows  us,  in  their  tragic 
interaction,  the  deeds  of  an  over-shrewd  miser  who 
cherishes  his  reputation  and  of  his  neighbors  who  deal 


THE  DOMINANT  CHARACTER        117 

lightly  with  it.  The  second  portrays  an  incorrigible 
'drawer  of  the  long  bow.  The  third  exhibits  the  acquisi- 
tive passion  and  its  paradoxical  end.  Such  material 
seldom  demands  the  false  psychological  manner;  its 
narrative  can  flow  along  as  objectively  as  a  newspaper 
report,  and  so  it  often  does.  Unfortunately,  though, 
it  often  does  not;  and  its  failure  is  nowhere  more  con- 
spicuous than  in  some  of  Howells'  stories. 

Howells  analyzes  human  nature's  milder  moods  and 
appetites  with  sympathetic  accuracy;  and  when  he 
does,  he  produces  a  sincere,  convincing  psychological 
story,  albeit  generally  a  tame  one.  But,  unfortunately, 
he  has  associated  the  psychological  manner  and  language 
with  whatever  material  he  writes  about;  and  when  the 
latter  is  not  psychological,  the  resulting  narrative  suffers. 
The  opening  of  A  Circle  in  the  Water  mingles  the  psycho- 
logical manner  with  the  psychological  material.  The 
former  appears  at  the  very  outset: 

The  sunset  struck  its  hard  red  light  through  the  fringe 
of  leafless  trees  to  the  west^^vard,  and  gave  their  outlines 
that  black  deflnition  which  a  French  school  of  landscape 
saw  a  few  years  ago,  and  now  seems  to  see  no  longer.  In 
the  whole  scene  there  was  the  pathetic  repose  which  we 
feel  in  some  dying  day  of  the  dying  year,  and  a  sort  of 
impersonal  melancholy  weighed  me  down  as  I  dragged 
myself  through  the  woods  toward  that  dreary  November 
sunset. 

Presently  I  came  in  sight  of  the  place  I  was  seeking,  and 
partly  because  of  the  insensate  pleasure  of  having  found  it, 
and  partly  because  of  the  cheerful  opening  in  the  boscage 
made  by  the  pool,  which  cleared  its  space  to  the  sky,  my 
heart  lifted.  I  perceived  that  it  was  not  so  late  as  I 
had  thought,  and  that  there  was  much  more  of  the  day 
left  than  I  had  supposed  from  the  crimson  glare  in  the 
west.     . 

The  phrases  of  this  passage  which  I  have  italicized  do  not 
describe  the  scene  directly,  nor  do  they  turn  us  toward 


118  SHORT  STORY   WRITING 

some  other  part  of  the  story  proper.  They  help  to  give 
us  a  distinct  feeling  for  the  mildly  dreary  autumnal  hour, 
by  telling  us  that  somebody  was  contemplating  the  sunset, 
and  what  he  felt.  The  narrator's  reminiscences  and  emo- 
tions are  of  no  account  in  the  drama;  they  merely  assist 
— or  are  supposed  to  assist — in  lighting  up  the  stage. 
Notice  how  easily  we  may  cut  them  out.  Smoothing 
over  the  gaps,  we  get  something  like  this: 

The  sunset  struck  its  hard  red  light  through  the  fringe 
of  leafless  trees  to  the  westward,  and  gave  their  outline 
a  black  definition.  In  the  whole  scene  there  was  the 
pathetic  repose  of  a  dying  day  in  the  dying  year;  and  the 
impersonal  melancholy  of  it  weighed  me  down  as  I 
dragged  myself  through  the  November  woods. 

Presently  I  came  in  sight  of  the  place  I  was  seeking;  a 
cheerful  opening  in  the  boscage  made  by  the  pool,  which 
cleared  its  space  to  the  sky.  There  was  more  of  the  day 
left  than  the  crimson  glare  in  the  west  betrayed  .    .    .  etc. 

Let  the  student  ask  himself  whether,  in  this  briefer, 
purely  objective  report,  any  feature  of  the  original  scene 
has  gone  lost.  I  think  he  will  find  none  missing;  and  if 
he  does,  it  is  through  my  faulty  abridging  and  not  be- 
cause of  the  changed  point  of  view.  The  truth  is,  very 
few  events  that  are  visible  or  audible  can  be  made  known 
to  readers  more  vividly  through  the  reporter's  'mental 
states'  than  by  means  of  the  bald,  common,  and  obvious 
qualities,  manners  and  consequences  of  the  objective 
items  themselves.  Indeed,  the  'mental  state'  generally 
turns  out  to  be  a  pure  redundancy,  as  it  is  in  the  above 
passage.  When  Howells  says  that  in  the  sunset  there  was 
the  repose  which  we  feel  in  a  dying  day,  the  allusion  to  tne 
feeling  is  gratuitous.  For  everybody  knows  that  repose 
is  something  which  we  feel;  and  to  mention  the  fact  in 
finished  prose  is  pretty  much  like  saying  'the  color  red 
which  we  see  in  the  rose',  when  one  means  'the  red  of 


THE   DOMINANT   CHARACTER  119 

the  rose^  or  *rose-red\  Or,  again,  to  say:  'I  perceived 
that  it  was  not  so  late  as  I  had  thought^  when  the  fact 
of  perceiving  makes  no  difference  to  the  story,  is  not  only 
less  elegant,  but  less  true  dramatically  than  to  say:  ^It 
was  not  so  late  as  I  had  thought.'  Such  psychological 
mannerisms  only  divert  the  reader  from  the  plot  to  the 
narrator,  and  to  that  extent  falsify  the  total  impression.^ 
Not  so,  however,  with  the  genuine  psychological  narra- 
tive whose  material  is,  both  by  intent  and  by  full  dramatic 
right,  the  world  of  'mental  states'.  When  the  narrator 
of  Ho  wells'  story  flings  himself  down  'on  one  of  the 
grassy  gradines  of  the  amphitheatre'  and  muses  over  the 
mysterious  antiquity  of  the  place,  he  sees  not  the  slight- 
est impulse  'of  the  life  that  the  thing  inarticulately  recorded.' 

I  began  to  think  how  everything  ends  at  last.  Love 
ends,  sorrow  ends,  and  to  our  mortal  sense  everything 
that  is  mortal  ends.  .  .  .  Was  evil  then  a  greater 
force  than  good  in  the  moral  world?  I  tried  to  recall 
personalities,  virtuous  and  vicious,  and  I  found  a  fatal 
want  of  distinctness  in  the  return  of  those  I  classed  as 
virtuous,  and  a  lurid  vividness  in  those  I  classed 
as  vicious.  Images,  knowledges,  concepts,  zigzagged 
through  my  brain,  as  they  do  when  we  are  thinking,  or 
beUeve  we  are  thinking;  perhaps  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
we  call  thinking,  except  when  we  are  talking. 

^  The  first  italicized  clause  in  the  opening  of  A  Circle  in  the  Water 
(117)  may  seem  far  removed  from  a  psychological  mannerism.  To 
compare  the  outhne  of  autumnal  trees  to  the  effects  achieved 
some  years  ago  by  certain  French  painters  is,  one  might  insist,  a 
sober  historical  allusion.  But  I  would  urge  that  it  is  this  only  in 
appearance.  Really  it  is  a  private  reminiscence,  as  obscure  as  it  is 
private.  It  is  a  random  association,  and  the  pictures  which  the 
landscape  suggested  to  the  author  have  been  neither  seen  nor 
heard  of  by  most  readers.  The  comparison  is  therefore  meaningless 
to  most  of  us.  In  effect,  it  is  as  though  Howells  had  written:  "The 
sunset  .  .  .  gave  their  outline  a  black  definition  which  awoke  in  me 
the  memory  of  something  done  by  a  French  school  .  .  .  etc". 
Thus  revised,  the  psychological  mannerism  of  it  protrudes. 


120  SHORT   STORY  WRITING 

These  reflections  and  the  peculiar  flicker  of  mind  that 
accompany  them  are  dramatically  perfect.  They  are  not 
dragged  in  to  describe  something  else.  They  are  made 
known  for  their  own  sake  and  because  they  count  in  the 
story.  It  is  this  very  doubt  about  the  permanence  of  the 
good  and  the  transiency  of  evil  which  is  going  to  work 
itself  out  in  the  encounter  with  Tedham.  Indeed,  to 
the  careful  reader,  it  appears  the  deeper,  more  universal 
topic,  of  which  Tedham's  adventures  are  only  a  dramatic 
exemplification.  The  difference,  therefore,  between  it 
and  the  'I  thought's',  'I  felt's',  and  'I  perceived's'  of  the 
first  quoted  passage  is  not  one  of  degree;  it  is  a  dif- 
ference of  logical  and  dramatic  kind.  Never  can  the 
one  be  reduced  to  the  other. 


EXERCISES  12] 


Exercises 


1.  Find  the  single  effect  of  Kipling's  In  Flood  Time 
(in  Black  and  White).  Then  analyze  the  six  paragraphs 
of  the  introduction,  separating  the  items  of  character, 
complication,  and  setting.  Now  point  out  those  which 
heighten  the  single  effect  and  those  which  do  not. 

2.  Does  the  opening  description  of  setting  and 
characters  (first  nine  paragraphs)  of  Mary  Wilkins 
Freeman's  A  Far-Away  Melody  (in  A  Humble  Romance) 
heighten  the  single  effect  of  the  story?  If  not,  specify  in 
what  respects  it  fails. 

3.  Answer  the  above  questions  with  regard  to  Mau- 
passant's The  Piece  of  String  (first  five  paragraphs). 

4.  In  0.  Henry's  Lost  on  Dress  Parade  do  you  find  any 
character  trait  or  deed  which  does  not  make  Mr.  Towers 
Chandler's  part  in  the  story  intelligible  or  open  to  such 
sympathy  as  it  merits?     If  so,  designate  it  precisely. 

5.  In  Margaret  Deland's  Good  for  the  Soul  {Old  Chester 
Tales)  is  any  character  trait  or  feature  described  which 
might  be  more  vividly  portrayed  in  direct  action?  If  so, 
designate  it. 

6.  Can  you  suggest  less  commonplace  incidents  for  the 
depicting  of  Langbourne's  eager  curiosity  in  Howells' 
The  Magic  of  a  Voice  (in  A  Pair  of  Patient  Lover s)"? 

7.  In  Mary  Wilkins  Freeman's  A  Modern  Dragon  (in 
A  Humble  Romance)  is  any  character  trait  elaborated 
beyond  the  demands  of  the  story? 

8.  Point  out  the  three  phases  of  the  leading  character's 
conduct  in  each  of  the  following  stories,  and  state  which  of 
them,  if  any,  the  author  has  either  overdrawn  or  under- 
drawn : 


122  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

a.  Poe's  The  Masque  of  the  Red  Death.  ' 

b.  George  Moore's  The  Exile  (in  The  Untilled  Field). 

c.  Kipling's  The  Phantom  ^Rickshaw. 

9.  a.  Pick  out  some  trait  in  the  following  character. 
Find  a  crucial  situation  in  the  events  narrated  which 
may  exhibit  that  trait.  Then  work  up  a  plot  around  it, 
drawing  on  the  given  material  as  much  or  as  little  as  you 
please. 

b.  Get  a  character  story  out  of  the  last  sentence  in  the 
news  item. 

Ross  Raymond,  author,  war  correspondent,  and  ad- 
venturer, of  whom  it  has  been  said  he  was  in  a  palace 
one  day  and  a  prison  the  next,  died  in  Carson,  Nev.,  on 
Thanksgiving  Day. 

Raymond's  right  name  was  Frank  Powers,  and  Beaver, 
Penn.,  was  the  place  of  his  birth.  At  different  times 
Raymond  declared  that  he  was  the  son  of  a  well-known 
officer  of  the  British  Army,  that  he  was  an  ex-officer  of 
the  British  Navy,  with  a  long  and  honored  career  behind 
him,  and  that  among  his  friends  were  some  of  the  fore- 
most men  and  women  of  this  country,  England,  and 
continental  Europe. 

Raymond  may  be  said  to  have  begun  his  varied  career 
by  entering  the  United  States  Navy.  After  serving  a 
time  he  resigned  and  then  entered  the  British  Navy,  and 
after  a  tour  of  duty  in  that  service  resigned  to  become  a 
correspondent  of  newspapers.  As  a  correspondent  he 
represented  in  various  parts  of  the  world  newspapers  in 
San  Francisco,  Chicago,  Baltimore,  London,  and  this 
city.  He  traveled  the  world  over,  and  it  is  said  was  one 
day  in  poverty  and  the  next  day  in  luxury. 

At  one  time  Raymond  was  on  the  staff  of  a  powerful 
Indian  Rajah,  while  at  the  time  of  the  bombardment  of 
Alexandria  he  was  an  officer  on  the  staff  of  the  Khedive 
of  Egypt.  After  his  Egyptian  career  he  is  charged  with 
having  impersonated  many  distinguished  men,  and  for 
these  false  pretensions  he  served  ten  years  in  an  English 


EXERCISES  123 

prison,  and  is  said  also  to  have  served  a  term  in  prison  in 
this  country. 

As  the  press  agent  of  the  Khedive  Raymond  cut  a  wide 
swath.  After  the  Egyptian  war  he  went  to  Paris,  clad 
in  the  glittering  uniform  of  an  Egyptian  officer  and  sur- 
rounded by  a  full  staff  of  equally  gorgeously  clad  Egyptian 
subordinates.  He  announced  at  the  time  that  the 
Khedive  was  soon  to  visit  Paris,  and  engaged  whole 
floors  in  great  hotels  for  the  entertainment  of  that  per- 
sonage. He  had  trays  of  rarest  gems  sent  to  him  for  in- 
spection, which  he  is  said  to  have  retained  pending  the 
approval  of  the  purchase  by  the  Khedive.  Then  he  dis- 
appeared. 

When  next  heard  of  he  was  masquerading  as  a  Rajah 
in  India.  He  had  a  great  time  in  India,  and  then  he 
came  back  to  the  United  States,  and  going  to  Ohio 
learned  that  his  mother  was  dead.  Then  he  went  West. 
His  wife  stuck  to  him  through  it  all. 

10.  What  character  trait  does  G.'s  conduct  suggest  in  the 
following  episode  from  the  Titanic  disaster?  If  you  find 
it  equivocal,  add  such  events  as  will  make  it  clear. 

When  the  crash  came  I  awakened  them  and  told 
them  to  get  dressed.  A  few  minutes  later  I  went  into  their 
rooms  and  helped  them  to  get  ready.  I  put  a  life  pre- 
server on  Mr.  G.  He  said  it  hurt  him  in  the  back.  There 
was  plenty  of  time  and  I  took  it  off,  adj  usted  it,  and  then 
put  it  on  him  again.     It  was  all  right  this  time. 

They  wanted  to  go  out  on  deck  with  only  a  few 
clothes  on,  but  I  pulled  a  heavy  sweater  over  Mr.  G.'s 
lifebelt,  and  then  they  both  went  out.  They  stayed 
together,  and  I  could  see  what  they  were  doing.  They 
were  going  from  one  lifeboat  to  another,  helping  the 
women  and  children.  Mr.  G.  would  shout  out,' Women 
first,'  and  he  was  of  great  assistance  to  the  officers. 

Things  weren't  so  bad  at  first,  but  when  I  saw  Mr.  G. 
about  three-quarters  of  an  hour  after  the  crash  there  was 
great  excitement.  What  surprised  me  was  that  both 
Mr.  G.  and  his  secretary  were  dressed  in  their  evening 
clothes.  They  had  deliberately  .taken  off  their  sweaters, 
and  as  nearly  as  I  can  remember  they  wore  no  lifebelts 
at  all. 


124  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

'What's  that  for?'  I  asked. 

'We've  dressed  up  in  our  best/  replied  Mr.  G., 
'and  are  prepared  to  go  down  Uke  gentlemen.'  It  was 
then  that  he  told  me  about  the  message  to  his  wife  and 
that  is  what  I  have  come  here  for. 

Well,  shortly  after  the  last  few  boats  were  lowered 
and  I  was  ordered  by  the  deck  officer  to  man  an  oar,  I 
waved  good-bye  to  Mr.  G.,  and  that  was  the  last  I  saw 
of  him  and  his  American  secretary. 

11.  a.  What  character  traits  are  at  work  in  the  following 
history?  Which  one  seems  to  have  been  decisive? 
Having  answered  these  questions,  simplify  the  events  so 
as  to  bring  out  nothing  but  the  one  most  important 
trait. 

b.  Can  either  character  be  made  the  topic  of  a  short 
story,  without  profoundly  altering  the  events? 

The  woman  who  was  found  insane  on  Monday  after- 
noon in  the  room  of  Prof.  Louis  G.  Parma,  beside  the 
dead  body  of  the  music  master,  was  identified  yesterday 
as  Clara  Conner  of  Shelbyville,  Ind.,  k  former  pupil  of  the 
professor. 

Prof.  Parma  kept  Miss  Conner  in  seclusion  for  twenty 
years,  providing  for  her  every  want  and  supporting  her 
entirely  at  his  expense,  that  she  might  not  be  sent  to  an 
insane  asylum.  The  old  professor  had  a  horror  of  such 
institutions,  and  when  Miss  Connor,  one  of  his  most 
promising  pupils  and  a  great  favorite  with  the  music 
master,  lost  her  reason,  he  proclaimed  to  his  friends  that 
never  should  the  girl,  without  near  relatives  or  appar- 
ently any  kin  at  all  except  a  cousin,  be  committed  to  an 
asylum. 

Prof.  Parma  was  wealthy  then.  Miss  Conner  had 
come  to  his  school  from  her  home  in  Shelbyville  and 
from  the  first  she  made  rapid  progress.  She  hoped  to 
win  a  place  on  the  stage,  and  the  professor  predicted  a 
great  future  for  her.     Then  her  mind  gave  way. 

Prof.  Parma  was  broken-hearted,  but  instantly  pro- 
vided a  place  in  his  own  home  for  the  girl.  To  strangers 
he  never  spoke  of  her,  but  to  his  and  her  friends  the 


EXERCISES  125 

professor  never  made  a  mystery  of  the  girFs  presence 
in  his  home.  He  regarded  her  affliction  as  a  secret  of 
hers,  and  for  this  reason  only  he  refused  to  mention  her 
to  strangers. 

The  doctors  in  Bellevue  Hospital  can  get  nothing 
coherent  from  the  woman.  In  her  babblings  she  has 
talked  in  at  least  seven  different  languages,  but  never 
connectedly  enough  to  give  the  authorities  any  clue  to  her 
past. 

12.  Develop  the  following  into  a  half-serious  character 
story,  first  designating  the  single  effect,  the  character 
trait,  and  the  crucial  situation. 

Willie  Finnegan,  12  years  old,  and  Freddie  Rosenberg, 
10  years  old,  today  became  tired  of  a  short  career  as 
thieves  and  applied  to  the  police  to  send  them  to  the 
reform  school. 

The  boys  a  few  nights  ago  tried  to  steal  the  opera 
house  bass  drum.  Next  they  robbed  John  P.  Flanagan's 
grocery  store,  and  last  night  stole  bottled  beer  from  a 
wagon.  They  drank  some  of  the  beer  and  today  felt 
remorse. 

The  police  turned  the  boys  over  to  Probation  Officer 
MacWilliam,  and  Judge  Lyon  sent  them  to  the  reform 
school  in  Jamesburg. 

13.  Read  carefully  How  ells'  The  Pursuit  of  the  Piano. 
Then  strike  out  from  the  first  chapter  every  word  which 
describes  an  event  or  circumstance  by  recounting  Hamil- 
ton Gaites'  sensations  or  thoughts  about  it.  Be  very 
careful  not  to  expunge  anything  that  counts  in  the  dramatic 
action.  Finally,  connect  smoothly  the  surviving  passages 
and  compare  the  result  with  the  original  with  respect 
to  (a)  vividness,  (b)  clarity,  and  (c)  dramatic  velocity. 


126  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 


SUB-CHAPTER  B.      THE   PLOT  ACTION. 

Important  as  the  plot  action  is,  it  makes  almost  no 
demand  upon  the  writer's  knowledge  or  insight,  in 
comparison  with  the  integrative  intensifier  which  we 
have  just  been  studying.  To  handle  it  effectively,  little 
technical  skill  is  required.  It  raises  only  two  questions 
worthy  of  discussion  here:  the  question  of  directness, 
and  the  question  of  necessity, 

1.  Directness.  Let  us  first  define  our  terms.  Action 
is  direct  which,  in  every  complication,  moves  toward  the 
crucial  situation.  Every  other  kind  is  indirect  in  greater 
or  lesser  degree. 

These  qualities  of  plot  action  must  be  carefully  dis- 
tinguished from  the  order  of  events,  with  which  it  is  easy 
to  confuse  them.  The  plot  action  is  determined  by  the 
selection  of  events  to  be  depicted;  the  order  of  the  selected 
events,  while  more  or  less  influenced  by  the  selection,  is 
a  distinct  and  secondary  feature.  Almost  any  story  will 
reveal  this  distinction,  but  Balzac's  A  Seashore  Drama 
does  so  with  exceptional  sharpness.  The  student  will 
please  analyze  it  carefully,  in  the  light  of  the  following 
comments. 

The  plot  action  here  is  doubly  indirect.  It  begins  with 
the  reveries  and  gamboling  of  the  artist  narrator  and 
Pauline  on  the  Brittany  coast,  and  through  the  first 
thousand  words  these  persons  seem  to  be  the  chief  char- 
acters. Then  the  wretched  fisherman  suddenly  appears, 
and  for  the  space  of  over  three  thousand  words  his  past 
and  present  misery  unfold.  Here  at  last,  the  reader 
thinks,  is  the  hero;  and  the  story  is  about  his  poverty, 
his  filial  loyalty,  and  the  solitude  of  his  dull  existence. 
But  no!  The  Man  of  the  Vow  at  last  shoots  into  view, 
and  the  tale  the  fisherman  tells  about  him  makes  us 


THE  PLOT  ACTION  127 

forget  all  else.  When  this  terrible  seashore  drama  has 
unrolled,  the  narrative  leaps  back  across  the  years  to 
the  artist  and  Pauline;  and  the  closing  movement  por- 
trays the  effect  of  the  drama  upon  them. 

Here,  to  be  sure,  is  a  definite  arrangement  of  episodes. 
But  the  order  itself  is  quite  distinct  from  the  matter 
ordered.  The  three  acts,  as  it  were,  might  contain 
exactly  the  same  incidents  and  yet  relate  them  in  other 
sequences.  Thus,  the  story  might  open  with  the  artist 
and  Pauline  meeting  the  fisherman.  During  the  mock 
barter  over  his  lobster  and  crab,  all  the  exuberance  of 
the  summer  visitors'  sheer  physical  joy  and  all  their 
summer  fancies  might  be  brought  out,  though  doubtless 
not  so  successfully  as  in  the  arrangement  which  Balzac 
has  chosen.  Also,  the  discovery  of  Cambremer  on  his 
granite  bowlder  might  occur  in  the  midst  of  the  artist's 
first  encounter  with  the  poor  fisherman;  and  the  fisherman 
might  tell  his  own  history  while  telling  that  of  the  Man 
with  the  Vow.  (The  story  would  gain  much  by  bringing 
Cambremer  into  it  sooner.) 

No  such  manipulation  affects  the  plot  action.  At 
most,  it  only  obscures  or  clarifies  it.  To  alter  the  plot's 
aramatic  qualitj^,  you  must  delete  episodes  or  insert  others. 
This  is  remarkably  easy  in  A  Seashore  Drama;  inasmuch  as 
neither  of  the  first  two  movements  contain  integral  parts 
of  the  central  plot.  Strictly  speaking,  both  of  them 
contribute  only  to  the  atmosphere  and  the  philosophical 
interpretation.  They  are  pure  intensifiers.  To  state 
this  in  the  language  of  the  definitions  above  laid  down: 
they  are  indirect  action,  inasmuch  as  neither  the  artist 
nor  Pauline  nor  the  fisherman  do  anything  which  makes 
Cambremer  drown  his  profligate  son. 

a.  Two  indirections.  Two  varieties  of  indirect  action 
are  conspicuous;  first,  that  which  introduces  secondary 
complications  (sub-plots)  in  order  to  reach  the  climax;  and, 


128  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

secondly,  that  which  proceeds  by  developing  a  character  in 
a  manner  that  conceals  the  line  of  action  from  the  reader 
for  a  while.  Gouverneur  Morris'  story,  Sapphira,  con- 
tains indirect  action  in  the  form  of  a  sub-plot,  which  is  pe- 
culiarly unsuccessful  inasmuch  as  the  minor  action 
almost  overwhelms  the  major.  The  title  indicates  that 
the  benevolent  liar,  Miss  Tennant,  is  the  dominant 
character  and  consequently  that  the  events  centering 
about  and  springing  from  her  fibs  constitute  the  plot. 
But  the  adventures  of  David  Larkin,  particularly  his  love 
affair  with  Another  Lady,  do  much  more  than  bring 
out  Miss  Tennant's  embarrassments;  they  make  one 
forget  these  altogether.  A  Circle  in  the  Water  is  doubly 
indirect  action.  It  introduces  a  secondary  complication 
(which,  in  this  case,  can  scarcely  be  called  a  sub-plot) 
and  it  also  proceeds  by  developing  the  leading  character, 
Tedham,  while  suppressing  the  plot  action  in  the  earlier 
movement.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  March  extraneously  make 
difficult  the  convict's  home-coming  and  his  meeting  his 
daughter.  Tedham's  reestablishment  in  his  daughter's 
affections  and  in  society  could,  so  far  as  the  dramatic 
necessities  of  the  affair  are  concerned,  have  been  ac- 
complished without  most  of  the  elaborate  debates  and 
interpositions  of  the  Marches.  While  these  do  figure 
in  the  action,  they  serve  chiefly  to  accentuate  the  public 
hostility  toward  ex-convicts  and  the  deeper  charity  of 
the  Marches,  which  feebly  struggles  to  masquerade 
under  the  guise  of  sternness.  The  two  indirections  shoot 
through  the  entire  narrative;  and  their  joint  effect  is 
especially  powerful  in  the  first  movement,  which  runs 
on  through  fifteen  hundred  words  without  betraying 
anything  about  the  leading  characters  and  the  com- 
plication. 

b.  The  use  of  direct  and  of  indirect  action.     The  illustra- 
tions we  have  just  considered  suggest  perhaps  that  only 


THE  PLOT  ACTION  129 

direct  action  is  altogether  praiseworthy.  But  this  is 
not  true,  though  it  is  much  more  nearly  so  in  the  out- 
and-out  character  story  than  elsewhere.  Which  method 
is  better  depends  upon  the  particular  effect  sought;  and 
the  fundamental  principle  which  decides  its  fitness  is 
the  principle  of  integration.  Thus,  if  we  were  writing 
a  thematic  story,  we  should  not  ask  ourselves  which 
events  in  our  material  are  the  most  exciting,  or  which 
rush  on  to  the  climax  most  swiftly.  Rather  should  we 
seek  those  which  more  uniformly  and  most  vividly 
illuminate  the  theme.  And  if,  again,  we  were  composing 
an  adventure  story  whose  supreme  thrill  sprang  from  pure 
surprise,  we  should  not  choose  a  plot  structure  with  an 
eye  to  its  character  drawing  or  its  moral  or  anything  else 
save  that  startling  denouement. 

We  may  sum  up  these  observations  in  several  practical 
rules : 

Like  every  other  factor,  episodes  may  be  intensifiert>^ 
of  whatever  single  effect  the  writer  aims  at.  Now,  of 
course,  all  those  which  are  integral  parts  of  the  plot  must 
be  reported  and  suitably  developed,  lest  the  action  be 
vague.  So  the  technical  problem  reduces  to  two  ques- 
tions: How  far  may  the  plot  events  be  elaborated  be- 
yond the  degree  at  which  they  make  clear  the  plot  action? 
And  to  what  extent  may  one  introduce  and  develop 
incidents  which  do  not  belong  to  the  plot  action?  The 
answer  is  simple  enough  in  form,  but  hard  to  apply. 

Only  such  events  may  be  introduced  as  heighten  the 
single  effect;  and  they  may  he  developed  only  up  to  the 
point  at  which  they  begin  to  obscure  the  plot  action  either 
by  interrupting  it  or  else  by  diverting  interest  from  it  to 
themselves. 

Let  us  suppose  that  you  have  a  plot  whose  most  inter- 
esting feature  is  not  the  complication  nor  the  atmosphere 
but,  say,  the  hero's  lack  of  humor.     This  defect  you  wish 


130  SHORT  STORY   WRITING 

to  bring  out  most  vividly,  making  it  yield  the  story's 
single  effect.  In  looking  over  the  essential  incidents  of 
the  bald  plot,  you  find  that,  while  they  reveal  the  trait, 
they  do  not  make  the  most  of  it.  They  give  the  fact 
but  not  the  thrill  of  it.  What  then  shall  you  do?  Well, 
first  of  all,  see  whether  some  of  the  essential  plot  incidents 
cannot  be  elaborated  so  as  to  produce  the  thrill.  If  they 
can,  you  are  fortunate.  If  they  cannot,  invent  a  few 
episodes  which  perfectly  characterize  your  hero's  mirth- 
lessness  and  add  them  to  the  narrative  at  the  point  where 
they  are  clear,  relevant,  and  harmless  to  the  continuity 
nA,^  of  the  action. 

Where  is  this  pomt?  Occasionally  you  will  find  it  at 
a  lull  in  the  main  action  where  the  latter  shifts  its  trend. 
But,  nine  times  out  of  ten,  it  is  at  the  story's  opening.  Not 
by  chance  nor  by  any  dead  technical  formality  does  it 
happen  thus,  but  rather  because  an  event  so  placed  does 
not  break  in  upon  the  plot  action  at  all  and,  furthermore, 
because  it  fixes  the  character  in  advance,  thereby  relieving 
the  reader  of  the  task  of  discovering  him.  As  the  majority 
of  stories  require  some  measure  of  secondary  intensifying 
episodes,  the  opening  assumes  a  tremendous  technical 
importance,  of  which  we  shall  soon  hear  more.  And  those 
editors  who  read  only  the  first  page  or  two  of  a  story 
manuscript  seldom  err  in  rejecting  a  contribution  that 
does  not  impress  them  favorably  in  that  brief  space. 

The  length  of  intensifying  plot  events  that  are  placed 
at  the  opening  is  pretty  easily  controlled,  but  that  of 
interpolated  material  is  not.  The  reason  for  this  is 
that  every  episode  which  enters  into  the  texture  of  a  plot 
must,  for  the  drama's  sake,  hang  together  smoothly  with 
its  antecedents  and  its  consequents,  and  a  certain  un- 
predictable amount  of  detail  is  involved  in  making  the 
two  transitions.  Unfortunately,  the  ease  and  brevity  of 
these  depend  so  much  upon  the  particular  events  that 


THE  PLOT  ACTION  131 

no  useful  rule,  nor  even  suggestion,  can  be  given  about 
them.  The  writer  must  fall  back  upon  the  general  prin- 
ciple. 

c.  The  two  typical  errors  in  plot  action.  An  episode  may 
violate  either  the  first  or  the  second  clause  of  the  general 
principle  and  thus  give  rise  to  two  kinds  of  faulty  action, 
which  we  may  name: 

i.    Irrelevancy  and 

ii.  Over  intensification. 

i.  Irrelevancy.  Many  writers  admit  matter  to  their 
pages  'because  it  is  really  connected  with  the  story' 
or  'because,  being  connected  with  it  in  fact,  it  will 
lend  a  desirable  air  of  reality  to  the  tale'.  These,  alas, 
are  fundamentally  wrong  reasons,  and  they  have  ruined 
whole  libraries  of  would-be  literature.  The  genuineness 
of  such  a  connection  is  not  the  slightest  argument  in 
favor  of  introducing  the  matter.  It  would  be,  if  you 
were  a  scientist  investigating  a  real  person  and  his  affairs. 
But,  as  an  artist  striving  to  exhibit  some  single  effect  of 
a  dramatic  incident,  you  must  suppress  everything  that 
does  not  make  for  this  end.  If  you  do  not,  you  will 
produce  things  like  a  recent  story  entitled  The  Crime  in 
Jedidiah  Peehle's  House,^  which  is  (unintentionally) 
a  most  solemn  warning  against  the  sin  of  realistic  ir- 
relevancy. 

Its  theme  seems  to  be  something  like  this:  'A  criminal 
is  relentlessly  pursued  by  public  vengeance  and  cannot 
hope  to  escape  it'.  The  single  effect  proper  to  this  is, 
of  course,  the  stern  joy  of  a  more  than  personal  justice, 
mingled  perhaps  with  awe  before  the  spectacle  of  Fate 
and  the  Furies  working  invisibly  through  the  common 
people.  The  main  plot  action  is  admirably  simple: 
a  fleeing  murderer,  resting  behind  a  hedge  far  from  the 
scene  of  his  crime,  overhears  some  people  talking  about 

^Harper's,  March,  1912. 


132  SHORT   STORY   WRITING 

him  and  his  past  and  his  pursuei:s  and  his  inevitable 
capture;  as  they  stroll  off,  the  sunset  pours  its  blood-red 
light  over  him,  and  tte  sky  holds  up  before  his  terror- 
stricken  eyes  a  great  cloud  shaped  like  the  head  of  the 
venerable  old  man  whom  he  has  slain.  There  you  have 
an  incident  which  Hawthorne  would  have  delighted  in 
and  exalted  to  a  magnificent,  sombre  allegory.  But,  in 
the  author's  hands,  it  has  been  ruined  by  the  chatter  of  the 
wayfarers.  Their  private  affairs,  so  far  as  I  perceive, 
have  no  inner  connection  with  the  theme  nor  with  the 
action;  nevertheless  they  have  been  spun  out  and  out  and 
still  out  until  the  reader  is  forced  to  believe  that,  in  some 
subterranean  way,  they  are  of  the  plot.  More  than  a 
thousand  words  are  wasted  in  talk  about  the  women's 
dresses,  their  opinions  about  husbands,  the  old  gentleman's 
seed  store,  his  pet  rabbits,  and  the  love  affair  of  his  impe- 
cunious grandson.  And  all  the  while,  behind  the  hedge, 
sits  the  murderer  drinking  in  this  dilute,  irrelevant  conver- 
sation. Poor  fellow!  If  he  is  bored  half  as  much  as  the 
reader  is,  the  punishment  exceeds  his  crim*^. 

ii.  Over-intensification.  This  fault,  unlike  the  first, 
is  one  to  which  very  good  writers  are  susceptible.  In- 
deed, it  is  the  supreme  literary  virtue  rimning  wild. 
He  who  clearly  perceives  his  theme,  its  best  single  effect, 
and  the  plot  action  is  most  likely  to  be  carried  away  by 
them  and  to  overdraw  some  significant  feature.  Mau- 
passant becomes,  at  times,  a  victim  of  literary  speed 
mania  and  strikes  a  pace  that  no  narrative  drama  can 
hold.  Poe  often  lays  on  horrors  too  thickl5^  Meredith 
is  thrust  out  of  the  story-world  by  the  avalanche  of  his 
subtle  refinements.  And  so  on,  even  unto  the  latest 
of  the  great,  O.  Henry,  who  cannot  always  control  his 
passion  for  topsy-turvy  surprises. 

A  fairly  clear  case  of  over-intensification  occurs  in 
Richard  Harding  Davis'  entertaining  psychological  story, 


THE   PLOT  ACTION  133 

A  Question  of  Latitude.^  Its  theme  is  put  into  the  mouth 
of  the  Enghsh  Coaster,  who,  speaking  of  the  Congo 
country,  says:  'It  doesn't  matter  a  damn  what  a  man 
brings  here,  what  his  training  was,  what  he  is.  The 
thing  is  too  strong  for  him.  ...  He  loses  shame, 
loses  reason;  becomes  cruel,  weak,  degenerate'.  This 
the  plot  action  illustrates.  An  eminently  moral  and 
well  bred  Bostonian  newspaper  man  goes  to  reform  the 
jungle,  and  the  jungle  deforms  him — but  not  so  seriously 
that  we  cannot  laugh  cynically  at  his  plight,  and  marvel 
at  the  author's  mercilessly  accurate  delineation  of  human 
nature  in  the  raw.  Now,  in  order  to  show  the  brute 
force  of  the  tropical  wildernesses  in  full  swing,  Davis  does 
exactly  the  right  things;  first,  he  makes  Everett,  the 
reformer,  the  incarnation  of  culture  and  the  proprieties; 
and,  secondly,  by  anecdote,  debate,  and  pure  description, 
he  portrays  the  Congo  country  in  all  its  vileness.  Every 
word  of  all  this  is  pertinent  and  interesting.  The  trouble 
is  that  it  is  too  interesting  and  too  long.  It  outshines 
the  story  of  Everett's  infatuation,  which  is  the  climax 
and  by  all  odds  the  most  entertaining  part  of  the  plot. 
The  first  five  hundred  words  present  us  with  as  minute 
a  portrait  of  the  hero  as  is  possible  in  brief  fiction.  (0. 
Henry  would  have  given  as  accurate  a  one  in  seventy- 
five  words.)  Then  follow  about  twelve  hundred 
words  of  conversation  on  shipboard  about  the  un- 
amiable  habits  of  West  Coast  savages  and  the  cor- 
ruption which  the  African  sun  works  under  the  European's 
skull.  The  next  eight  hundred  words  report  Everett's 
harrowing  first  experiences;  and  here  the  plot  action 
gets  under  way,  somewhere  around  Word  No.  2,400,  which 
is  at  least  a  thousand  words  too  late. 

d.  The  formalist  fallacy.  The  assertion  has  often  been 
made  that  Hhe  short  story  is  Maupassant';  which  is  a 

*  In  the  collection  entitled  Once  Upon  a  Time  (Scribner's,  1910). 


134  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

eulogistic  way  of  saying  that  the  pure  direct  plot  action 
alone  is  the  perfect  pattern.  This  view,  however,  can 
be  maintained  only  by  assuming  that  the  one  legitimate 
single  effect  is  that  of  dramatic  velocity.  Such  a  pre- 
supposition runs  counter  to  the  taste  of  most  artists  and 
readers  and  is,  for  this  reason  alone,  indefensible  inas- 
much as  literary  ideals  are  essentially  a  matter  of  taste. 
Few  of  us  are  so  narrow  that  we  find  enjoyment  only  in 
such  swift  catastrophes  as  The  Piece  of  String,  The 
Necklace  and  Little  Soldier,  Life  is  full  of  gentler  griefs 
and  lazier  merriment  and  more  languorous  romance  which 
claim  our  tears  and  laughter  no  less  strongly  and  which 
cannot  be  told  adequately  with  Maupassant's  lightning 
artistry.  The  pure  dramatic  story  of  the  French  type  gives 
us  the  dizzying  effect  of  terrific  speed.  Its  scenes  and 
catastrophes  flit  past  as  the  landscape  past  a  racing  auto- 
mobile. Probably  no  other  sensation  is  quite  so  intense, 
unless  it  is  that  of  tumbling  from  an  aeroplane.  But 
there  are  many  other  kinds  of  intensity,  and  every  well- 
balanced  reader  likes  to  change  the  flavor  of  his  fiction 
occasionally.  These  other  intensities  are  not  all  attained 
by  swift,  direct  action.  The  quality  accentuated  in  the 
story's  single  effect  may  be  any  one  of  a  large  number 
which  reveal  themselves  in  slower  stirrings.  They  are 
especially  prominent  in  three  classes  of  stories: 
>^  i.  The  thematic  story  commonly  requires  indirect 
action;  because  the  development  of  the  theme  tends  to 
follow  the  argumentative  order  of  its  proof,  and  the  steps 
of  the  latter  are  seldom  connected  dramatically. 

ii.  The  'psychological  character  story  of  the  analytical 
type  often  calls  for  mdirect  action,  especially  when  the 
forces  at  work  in  the  character  are  either  highly  com- 
plicated or  are  interesting  because  of  their  surprising 
solution.  In  the  former  case  the  pattern  of  action  re- 
sembles  that   of   the   story   with   sub-plots,   the   minor 


THE  PLOT  ACTION  135 

movements  being  those  of  the  various  interplaying  in- 
stincts, prejudices,  and  appetites. 

iii.  The  complication  story  employs  indirect  action  in 
proportion  to  its  intricacy  and  to  the  importance  of  the 
solution.  The  pure  surprise,  such  as  the  detective  and 
the  mystery  tale,  usually  is  indirect. 

In  all  other  cases,  however,  direct  action  is  better,  par- 
ticularly in  the  ordinary  character  story.  Such  a  story 
depicts  conduct  in  a  crisis,  and  this  is  never  clearer  and 
stronger  than  when  told  in  its  own  simple  terms,  un- 
decorated  by  attendant  circumstances  and  not  refracted 
through  some  other  character's  experience.  To  inter- 
polate events  or  commentaries  between  the  items  of  the 
pure  plot  may  indeed  interpret  the  latter  gloriously,  but 
it  blurs  the  picture  more  or  less,  coloring  the  action  with 
preachment. 

2.  Necessity.  One  of  the  most  hotly  debated  ques- 
tions in  the  older  theories  of  the  drama  had  to  do  with 
the  nature  and  bounds  of  dramatic  necessity.  To  what 
extent  may  the  playwright  allow  accidents  to  happen  on 
his  stage?  The  weight  of  authority  has  always  been 
against  his  allowing  it  at  all.  And  this  opinion  has  come 
over,  quite  naturally,  into  the  theory  of  dramatic  fiction, 
and  today  prevails  there.  As  Brander  Matthews  neatly 
puts  it,  "fiction  dealt  first  with  the  Impossible,  then 
with  the  Improbable,  next  with  the  Probable,  and  now 
at  last  with  the  Inevitable".  And  hi  The  Story-Teller^ s 
Art  Charity  Dye  lays  down  the  orthodox  rule,  which  we 
must  quote  for  the  second  time:  "In  a  well-appointed 
story,  not  only  must  everything  that  happens  seem  to 
grow  naturally  out  of  the  situation,  but  it  must  seem  to 
be  the  only  thing  that  could  happen  under  the  circum- 
stances." 

However  sound  this  may  be  in  the  field  of  drama,  it 
is  little  short  of  preposterous  as  a  commandment  to  the 


136  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

fiction  writer.  It  could  have  been  advanced  only  by 
persons  whose  interest  in  a  certain  type  of  literature 
hid  everything  else  from  their  understanding.  As  a 
criterion  of  artistic  merit  it  fails  miserably,  and  as  a  guide 
in  writing  it  is  a  sheer  impossibility.  Not  one  in  a  hundred 
good  short  stories  produces  so  much  as  the  fleeting  im- 
pression of  inevitability;  and  I  do  not  believe  that  more 
than  one  author  in  a  hundred  strives  for  that  effect. 
Those  who  do  so,  moreover,  fall  far  short  of  it.  Howells, 
for  instance,  aspires  toward  a  psychological  fatalism 
in  which,  as  we  have  heard  him  say,  the  events  of  a  story 
are  the  mere  effects  of  the  particular  character  whom  the 
writer  is  exhibiting.  As  effects,  they  must  of  course 
appear  as  the  necessary  consequences  of  their  causes. 
But  how  often  do  they  in  Howells'  stories?  Or,  again, 
how  often  in  James*  and  Mrs.  Wharton's?  I  must  confess 
that  I  have  not  experienced  so  much  as  the  illusion  of 
inevitability  there,  except  in  The  Liar  and  in  that  marvel- 
ous novelette,  Ethan  Frome. 

This  is  not  proof  that  the  ideal  of  dramatic  necessity 
is  wrong.  It  is  only  an  argumentum  ad  hominem.  But 
practically  it  is  as  good  as  a  demonstration;  for  where 
such  masters  of  analysis  as  Howells,  James,  and  Wharton 
fail  we  wrongly  urge  others  to  rush  in.  Impersonal  evi- 
dence of  the  same  import  is  not  lacking,  though;  and  it 
is  most  accessible  in  the  ideals  of  short  story. 

So  long  as  we  are  trying  to  fix  upon  nothing  more  than 
the  marks  of  a  good  short  story,  we  have  no  right  to  look 
beyond  the  virtues  of  dramatic  narrative  with  a  single 
effect.  We  ought  not  select  a  theme  or  a  type  of  material, 
or  a  literary  style  within  such  narrative  and  find  therein 
the  'essence'  of  the  genre.  The  'essence'  is  not  there, 
any  more  than  all  human  beauty  is  resident  in  the  smile 
of  a  lovely  face  that  strikes  our  fancy.  To  think  that 
it  is,  is  to  perpetrate  what  the  logicians  term  the  fallacy 


THE  PLOT  ACTION  137 

of  accident.  It  is  to  confuse  form  and  matter  and  to 
exalt  the  latter  to  the  level  of  the  first.  Or  it  is  to  mistake 
an  intensity  for  the  quality  which  is  intense. 

It  may  well  be  that  drama  attains  its  supremely  en- 
thralling moment  when  it  reveals  a  human  soul  triumph- 
antly asserting  itself  over  circumstances  which  threaten 
to  stifle  its  virtues  and  pervert  its  noblest  instincts. 
But,  even  so,  it  does  not  follow  that  whatever  falls  short 
of  this  high  pitch  is  not  genuine  drama.  One  might  as 
well  argue  that  only  the  most  vivid  blue  is  true  blue, 
and  only  the  loudest  note  true  music.  The  combination 
of  persons  and  events  which  makes  dramatic  action  in- 
tense does  not  make  it  dramatic.  To  attain  the  intensity, 
the  matter  must  first  have  acquired  the  specific  quality. 

Let  us  now  apply  these  dry,  abstract  propositions  to 
the  integrative  intensifying  of  the  short  story.  Dramatic 
necessity  is  only  one  of  many  devices  for  perfecting  the 
single  effect.  It  is  not  an  ideal  of  the  short  story,  as 
such;  its  usefulness  is  limited  to  a  relatively  small  class  of 
character  plots,  namely  those  which  depict  nothing  but 
the  operations  of  sharply  defined  mental  types.  Its 
employment  elsewhere  probably  does  more  harm  than 
good. 


138  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 


Exercises 


The  anecdote  below  is  highly  ambiguous.  Give  it  as 
many  reasonable  interpretations  as  you  can.  Then 
amplify  it  so  variously  as  to  develop  in  turn  (1)  a  broadly 
comic  complication;  (2)  a  pathetic  character  story;  and 
(3)  a  moral  tragedy. 

Charged  with  intoxication,  a  man  dressed  in  a  Santa 
Claus  costume  caused  a  stir  today  in  the  Adams  Street 
Police  Court. 

''What  is  this?"  said  the  Magistrate,  as  he  gazed  on 
the  figure  before  him.  "Santa  Claus  in  a  poHce  court? 
I  thought  he  was  too  busy  with  getting  things  ready  for 
Christmas  to  spend  his  valuable  time  in  this  place?" 

Santa  Claus  appeared  bewildered  and  muttered 
something  that  sounded  like  too  much  Christmas,  but 
was  unable  to  say  any  more. 

Policeman  Joseph  Kane  told  the  Magistrate  that  he 
had  found  the  man,  Louis  Kane,  at  Fulton  and  Willoughby 
streets  flourishing  a  bell  and  requesting  the  charity  of 
passersby  for  Christmas.  He  had  a  cauldron,  into  which 
contributions  were  dropped. 

The  policeman  said  he  approached  Kane  and  cautioned 
him  not  to  be  so  enthusiastic  about  the  boiling  pot. 

"But,"  said  Santa,  "I  am  a  member  of  the  Volunteers 
of  America  and  must  earn  my  salary." 

"You're  drunk,"  said  the  policeman. 

"Well,  I  did  go  into  a  saloon,"  the  poHceman  quoted 
him  as  saying,  "to  get  some  string  to  tie  my  whiskers  on, 
as  they  were  falling  off,  and  I  must  admit  I  did  take  about 
'two  fingers.'" 

The  man  and  the  pot  were  taken  to  the  Adams  street 
poHce  station,  where  "Santa"  spent  the  night,  and  was 
discharged  today  by  the  Magistrate  with  a  reprimand. 

As  Kane  left  the  court  he  was  heard  to  mutter,  "Never 
again!" 


EXERCISES  139 

*    2.  a.  Construct  a  humorous  complication  plot  out  of 
the  following,  using  the  judge  as  the  butt. 

b.  Make  a  thematic  tragedy  plot  of  it,  building  around 
'red  tape'  or  else  the  cruel  and  empty  dignity  of  the 
law. 

C.  J.  McGuire,  a  letter  carrier,  entered  the  Yorkville 
Court  yesterday  with  a  special  delivery  letter.  He  re- 
fused to  remove  his  hat  from  his  head  when  ordered  to  do 
so  by  Court  Attendant  Rasmussin.     He  said: 

*'  I  am  only  obeying  orders.  I  am  not  allowed  to  take 
off  any  part  of  my  uniform  while  on  duty." 

Magistrate  Breen  wanted  to  know  whether  the  post- 
man couldn't  strain  a  point  in  favor  of  courtesy,  but 
McGuire,  who  seemed  to  be  a  stickler  for  departmental 
rules,  said  this  was  impossible. 

"I  am  only  obeying  orders.  I  am  not  allowed  to  take 
off  any  part  of  my  imiform  while  on  duty",  he  said,  me- 
chanically. 

Having  found  out  that  the  man  to  whom  he  had  to 
deliver  the  letter  was  stationed  in  the  Men's  Night  Court, 
McGuire  started  to  walk  out. 

''Be  sure  you  keep  your  hat  on  when  you  go  into  the 
Night  Court",  Magistrate  Breen  called  out.  Whereupon 
McGuire  answered  in  a  monotone: 

"I  am  only  obeying  orders.  I  am  not  allowed  to  take 
off  any  part  of  my  uniform  while  on  duty." 

3.  In  each  of  the  following  stories  discover  (a)  the  items 
of  the  direct  action;  (b)  those  of  indirect  action  (if  any); 
(c)  irrelevant  episodes,  and  (d)  over-intensified  episodes. 
Explain  each  case  of  (c)  and  (d). 

Balzac,  H. — La  Grande  Breteche. 

Foe—The  Gold  Bug. 

Kipling — The  Man  Who  Would  Be  King 

Coppee — A  Voluntary  Death. 

O.  Henry — Lost  on  Dress  Parade  (in  The  Four  Million), 

London,  J.^A  Day^s  Lodging  (in  Love  of  Life). 

Benefield,  B. — Old  Johnnie  (Scribner's,  Dec,  1911) 


140  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

Byron,  T.  P. — Loaded  Dice  (Everyhodifs,  Jan.,  1912). 

Osbourne,  Lloyd — Detty  the  Detrimental  {Everybody's, 
Aug.,  1910).  -V 

4.  While  reading  each  of  the  following  stories,  note  (a) 
the  point  in  the  narrative  where  you  think  you  foresee 
the  outcome;  (b)  the  point  where  you  revise  this  guess, 
and  (c)  the  accuracy  of  the  guess. 

James,  H. — Owen  Wingrave. 

Deland,  Margaret — The  Child's  Mother  (in  Old  Chester 
Tales). 

Kipling,  R. — His  Wedded  Wife  (in  Plain  Tales  from 
the  Hills).  4 

London,  J. — The  Unexpected  (in  Love  of  Life). 

Henry,  0. — A  Blackjack  Bargainer  (in  Whirligigs). 

By  what  handling  of  the  action  is  suspense  maintained 
in  each  story?    Which  handling  succeeds  best? 


.  THE  ORDER  OF  EVENTS         141 


SUB-CHAPTER  C. — THE  ORDER  OF  EVENTS. 

This  problem  is  a  stumbling  block.  Not  one  beginner  in 
twenty  solves  it,  nor  does  more  than  one  magazine  story  in 
five.  Why  is  this?  Chiefly  because,  in  arranging  events, 
the  writer  must  look  away  from  his  plot  for  a  while  and  put 
himself  in  the  reader's  place.  He  may  construct  his  story, 
insofar  as  the  choice  and  qualification  of  its  material  are 
concerned,  with  an  eye  to  nothing  save  the  material  itself. 
For  this  labor  he  is  sufficiently  equipped  if  he  understands 
his  people,  times,  and  places,  and  recognizes  a  dramatic 
complication  when  he  sees  or  imagines  one.  But  the 
instant  he  begins  the  narrative,  he  is  confronted  with  a 
radically  different  task;  he  must  now  communicate  with 
his  pubUc,  and  in  such  fashion  that  the  latter  gets  not 
only  the  facts  but  their  dramatic  effect.  This  effect  is 
produced  by  a  delicate  and  exceedingly  difficult  mingling 
of  revelations  and  concealments;  for,  as  with  humor  and 
music,  its  peculiar  quality  depends  upon  what  the  audi- 
ence receives  from  moment  to  moment.  In  the  language 
of  rhetoric,  it  is  a  matter  of  order  and  suspense. 

Now,  the  art  of  suspense  is  as  different  from  pure 
plotting  as  speech  is  different  from  thought.  This  must 
be  emphasized  today  as  never  before,  inasmuch  as  the 
contrary  has  been  stoutly  alleged  by  not  a  few  authorities. 
Certain  philosophers  and  literary  folk  tell  us  that  a 
story  is  bound  to  be  no  better  and  no  worse  than  the  idea 
which  the  author  has  to  express;  and  hence  that,  once 
you  clear  up  your  plot  and  know  just  what  effect  you  wish 
it  to  produce,  it  will  narrate  itself.^    This  theory  shoots 

1  This  theory  of  the  self-expression  of  ideas  originates  with  the 
brilliant  Italian  philosopher  and  critic,  Benedetto  Croce.  He  gives 
it  a  form,  though,  which  is  not  open  to  the  above  criticism.  The 
erroneous  twist  in  it  appears  in  the  thinking  of  those,  his  followers; 
who  apply  the  doctrine  to  literature  and  its  teaching. 


142  SHORT   STORY   WRITING 

very  close  to  the  truth,  and  it  is  not  easily  refuted  in 
debate;  but  a  little  editorial  experience  quickly  discloses 
its  one  small,  yet  fatal  exaggeration.  Everybody  who 
has  read  MSS.  knows  that  the  so-called  'story-sense' 
and  the  knack  of  story-telling  are  two  distinct  gifts, 
almost  as  independent  as  the  eyes  are  independent  of  the 
ears.  Some  writers  conjure  up  delightful  plots  but 
cannot  narrate  them  effectively,  although  they  have  all 
the  details  well  in  hand  and  write  a  flowing  narrative 
style.  Others,  on  the  contrary,  devise  weak  plots  and 
seem  to  have  little  feeling  for  character  and  complication; 
but  give  them  a  plot,  and  they  dash  off  a  capital  story. 
There  is  a  well  known  story  writer  of  to-day  whose  greatest 
successes  have  been  built  upon  plots  given  to  him  by  oblig- 
ing editors  and  whose  desperate  efforts  at  originality  usu- 
ally gain  him  admittance  only  to  third-rate  maga- 
zines. And  three  of  the  most  ingenious  plot-makers 
and  smoothest  writers  among  my  own  students 
have  always  had  difficulty  in  'getting  it  over  the 
footlights',  while  others  much  less  gifted  in  fantasy 
and  in  command  of  words  have  readily  produced 
salable  stories. 

1.  What  order  accomplishes.  At  least  four  things  are 
accomplished  by  the  arrangement  of  episodes: 

i.     Transitions  are  smoothed. 

ii.    Characters  and  situations  are  clarified. 

iii.  The  natural  climactic  sequence  of  the  plot  events 
is  made  evident  and  sometimes  intensified. 

iv.  The  single  effect  of  the  story  is  sharpened  ('the 
theme  is  rounded  off'). 

2.  First  general  law  of  order.  Throughout  his  work,  the 
student  should  keep  in  mind  the  principle  of  simplicity, 
which,  with  reference  to  our  present  topic,  may  be  thus 
stated : 

Alter  the  historical  order  no  more  than  is  necessary. 


THE  ORDER  OF  EVENTS  143 

And  the  corollary  is:  First,  discover  the  historical 
order  and  test  its  narrative  values.  The  beginner,  indeed, 
will  generally  do  well  to  adhere  to  it  in  the  first  complete 
draft  of  each  story.  He  should  not  trust  his  judgment 
in  imagining  the  efTect  of  the  sequence. 

3.  The  special  problems  of  order.  With  respect  to  the 
material  of  the  story,  there  arise  three  special  problems 
of  order: 

a.  The  opening  event. 

b.  The  closing  event. 

c.  The  distribution  of  events  throughout  the  plot 
action. 

In  solving  each  of  these  problems,  all  four  of  the  above 
named  improvements  are  accomplished,  in  varying 
degrees. 

a.  The  opening  event.  The  opening  event  has  two 
functions;  it  must  awaken  the  reader's  interest  in  the  / 
story  and  it  must  also  carry  him  quickly  into  the  latter. 
Either  function  alone  is  easily  discharged,  but  to  handle 
both  at  once  demands  considerable  skill  and  frequently 
much  experimenting.  Many  a  story  which  finishes 
strong  begins  with  dull  episodes.  Witness  that  de- 
licious satire  of  Mrs.  Wharton's,  Xingu,^  which  starts 
off  thus: 

Mrs.  Ballinger  is  one  of  the  ladies  who  pursue  Culture 
in  bands,  as  though  it  were  dangerous  to  meet  alone.  To 
this  end  she  had  founded  the  Lunch  Club,  an  association 
composed  of  herself  and  several  other  indomitable  hunt- 
resses of  erudition.  The  Lunch  Club,  after  three  or  four 
winters  of  lunching  and  debate,  had  acquired  such  local 
distinction  that  the  entertainment  of  distinguished 
strangers  became  one  of  its  accepted  functions;  in  recog- 
nition of  which  it  duly  extended  to  the  celebrated  'Osric 
Dane',  on  the  day  of  her  arrival  in  Hillbridge,  an  invitation 
to  be  present  at  the  next  meeting. 

^Scribner'Sf  Dec,  1911. 


l^' 


144  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

A  Lunch  Club  hardly  piques  the  jaded  reader's  euri- 
Dsity.  But  for  the  stinging  characterization  of  Mrs. 
Ballinger,  he  might  yawn  and  pass  on  to  the  next  article. 
That  clever  hit,  though,  at  the  get-wise-quick  lady  stirs 
him;  and  he  will  be  dull  indeed  if  he  does  not  wonder 
what  is  going  to  happen  to  her.  Mrs.  Wharton's  device 
is  perfect,  as  usual,  and  we  may  profitably  scrutinize  it. 

In  these  hundred  words  Mrs.  Wharton  has  (1)  pre- 
cisely anticipated  the  single  effect  of  her  story  (mildly 
satirical  merriment);  (2)  outlined  the  setting;  (3)  desig- 
nated and  slightly  described  two  of  the  leading  characters, 
and  (4)  reported  one  of  the  events  of  the  complication. 
The  only  thing  that  has  not  been  broached  is  the  outcome 
of  the  comedy;  and  to  omit  this  is  no  fault.  For  the 
opening  does  not  have  to  tell  the  story,  but  should  only 
coax  the  reader  into  it  pleasantly;  and  this  can  be  ac- 
complished in  most  cases  by  the  factors  above  named. 
Furthermore,  there  is  always  the  danger  that,  in  fore- 
casting the  finish,  you  may  betray  the  action  and  rob  it 
of  all  tension  and  surprise,  as  Kipling  all  but  does  in 
At  the  Pit's  Mouth,  when  he  begins  thus: 

Once  upon  a  time,  there  was  a  Man  and  his  Wife,  and  a 
Tertium  Quid. 

All  three  were  unwise,  but  the  Wife  was  the  un wisest. 
The  man  should  have  looked  after  his  Wife,  who  should 
have  avoided  the  Tertium  Quid,  who,  again,  should  have 
married  a  wife  of  his  own,  after  clean  and  open  flirtation, 
to  which  nobody  can  possibly  object,  round  Jakko  or 
Observatory  Hill.     ... 

The  eternal  'triangle'  and  its  eternal  tragedy  are  too 
palpable;  and,  though  the  outcome  is  not  quite  stated, 
you  have  only  three  guesses  about  it,  and  each  is  too, 
too  easy. 

Now,  bearing  in  mind  the  two  functions  of  the  opening 
and  the  ideals  of  our  genre  we  may  distinguish  ten  ways 


THE  ORDER  OF  EVENTS 


145 


of  getting  a  start.  I  list  them  in  the  order  of  their 
general  excellence.^  (The  fifth  alone  is,  as  we  shall  see, 
often  better  than  its  rank.)     A  story  may  open  with: 

1. 


Direct  action: 


Indirect  action: 


Which  reveals  in  some  measure  the 
setting,  the  characters,  and  the 
theme  or  the  single  effect. 

2.  Which  reveals  character  only. 

3.  Which  reveals  the  setting  only. 

4.  Which  reveals  only  the  theme  or  the 
single  effect. 

5.  A  philosophical  overture.  (Anticipa- 
tory generalizations  without  ac- 
tion.) 

6.  Which  reveals  setting,  characters, 
and  the  theme  or  single  effect. 

7.  Which  reveals  character  only. 

8.  Which  reveals  the  setting  only. 

9.  Which  reveals  only  the  theme  or 
single  effect. 

10.  Pure  description.     (No  action  and 

no  anticipatory  generalizations.) 

For  simplicity,  I  omit  from  this  list  six  types,  namely 
all  those  which  reveal  some  two  of  the  three  story  factors, 
such  as  character  and  setting,  or  setting  and  theme. 
There  are  three  two-phase  openings  with  direct  action, 

^The  student  must  be  warned  against  supposing  that  he  falls 
short  of  perfection  whenever  he  is  unable  to  begin  a  story  in  the 
better  of  these  manners.  It  may  be  that  his  plot  and  his  single 
effect  necessitate  indirect  action  or  the  concealment  of  character 
up  to  some  point  in  the  midst  of  the  story.  Not  every  story  can 
have  tha  best  beginning,  any  more  than  it  can  have  the  strongest 
climax.  Both  start  and  finish  depend  more  or  less  upon  the  epi- 
sodes that  start  and  finish.  Usually  at  least  four  or  five  openings 
are  possible;  and  the  author  must  discover  and  choose  the  best  of 
these. 


146  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

and  three  with  mdirect.  Naturally  each  is  better  than 
any  one-phase  opening  of  its  own  tj^je  of  action.  And 
the  student  will  readily  grasp  the  nature  and  merits  of 
each,  as  soon  as  he  has  mastered  the  ten  fundamental 
types. 

Illustrations. 

1.  The  opening  of  Xingu,  already  quoted  and  analyzed. 

2.  Love  of  Life,  by  London: 

They  limped  painfully  down  the  bank,  and  once  the 
foremost  of  the  two  men  staggered  among  the  rough- 
strewn  rocks.  They  were  tired  and  weak,  and  their  faces 
had  the  drawn  expression  of  patience  which  comes  of 
hardship  long  endured.  They  were  heavily  burdened 
with  blanket  packs  which  were  strapped  to  their  shoulders. 
Head-straps,  passing  across  the  forehead,  helped  support 
these  packs.  Each  man  carried  a  rifle.  They  walked 
in  a  stooped  posture,  the  shoulders  well  forward,  the  head 
still  farther  forward,  and  the  eyes  bent  upon  the  ground. 

"I  wish  we  had  just  about  two  of  them  cartridges 
that's  layin'  in  that  cache  of  ourn,"  said  the  second  man. 

His  voice  was  utterly  and  drearily  expressionless.  He 
spoke  without  enthusiasm;  and  the  first  man,  limping 
into  the  milky  stream  that  foamed  over  the  rocks,  vouch- 
safed no  reply. 

Where  are  the  men?  What  is  their  predicament? 
What  is  going  to  befall  them?  And  what  is  the  theme? 
You  cannot  know  until  much  farther  along  in  the  tale. 
But  the  picture  of  the  men  excites  your  interest  and 
promises  to  lead  swiftly  into  the  adventure.  In  the  very 
next  instant  the  accident  happens  which  makes  the 
story. 

3.  The  Pursuit  of  the  Piano,  by  Ho  wells: 

Hamilton  Gaites  sat  breakfasting  by  the  window  of  a 
restaurant  looking  out  on  Park  Square,  in  Boston,  at  a 
table  which  he  had  chosen  after  rejecting  one  on  the 
Boylston  Street  side  of  the  place  because  it  was  too 


THE  ORDER  OF  EVENTS  147 

noisy,  and  another  in  the  little  open  space,  among  ever- 
greens in  tubs,  between  the  front  and  rear,  because  it 
was  too  chilly.  The  wind  was  east,  but  at  his  Park 
Street  window  it  tempered  the  summer  morning  air  with- 
out being  a  draught;  and  he  poured  out  his  coffee  with  a 
content  in  his  circumstance  and  provision  which  he  was 
apt  to  feel  when  he  had  taken  all  possible  pains,  even 
though  the  result  was  not  perfect.  .  .  .  (The 
balance  of  the  paragraph  describes  Gaites'  food.) 

It  is  from  this  comfortable  vantage  that  the  hero  first 
spies  Phyllis*  piano  on  its  devious  way  to  Lower  Merritt. 
Hence  his  breakfasting  there  is  an  integral  part  of  the 
plot  action.  But  it  carries  the  reader  a  very  short 
distance  into  the  story.  Is  Gaites  a  fugitive  murderer 
or  a  hardware  drummer  or  a  Harvard  professor  of  astrol- 
ogy? Is  the  story  going  to  be  about  the  restaurant  or  his 
cantaloupe  or  Park  Square  or  himself?  And  will  it  deepen 
into  tragedy  or  froth  up  into  farce?  Thus  far,  there's 
not  a  clue  to  any  of  these  mysteries.  The  opening  is 
conspicuously  weaker  than  the  preceding  types. 

4.  The  Fall  of  the  House  of  Usher,  by  Poe. 

During  the  whole  of  a  dull,  dark,  and  soundless  day 
in  the  autumn  of  the  year,  when  the  clouds  hung  op- 
pressively low  in  the  heavens,  I  had  been  passing  alone, 
on  horseback,  through  a  singularly  dreary  tract  of  country; 
and  at  length  found  myself,  as  the  shades  of  evening  drew 
on,  within  view  of  the  melancholy  House  of  Usher.  I 
do  not  know  how  it  was — but  with  the  first  glimpse  of  the 
building,  a  sense  of  insufferable  gloom  pervaded  my 
spirit.  I  say  insufferable;  for  the  feeling  was  unrelieved 
by  any  of  that  half-pleasurable,  because  poetic,  senti- 
ment with  which  the  mind  usually  receives  even  the 
sternest  natural  images  of  the  desolate  or  terrible.  I 
looked  upon  the  scene  before  me — upon  the  mere  house, 
and  the  simple  landscape  features  of  the  domain — upon 
the  bleak  walls — upon  the  vacant,  eye-like  windows — 
upon  a  few  rank  sedges — and  upon  a  few  white  trunks 


148  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

of  decayed  trees—with  an  utter  depression  of  soul  which 
I  can  compare  to  no  earthly  sensation  more  properly 
than  to  the  afterdream  of  the  reveller  upon  opium — the 
bitter  lapse  into  everyday  life — the  hideous  dropping 
off  of  the  "Veil.     . 


This,  it  must  be  confessed,  is  not  an  absolutely  pure 
specimen  of  a  direct-action  opening  which  reveals  only 
the  theme  or  the  single  effect.  It  tells  us  a  very  little,  yet 
a  little  too  much  about  the  setting  of  the  story.  Never- 
theless, it  will  serve  better  than  most  of  its  type,  inasmuch 
as  it  develops  so  marvelously  the  emotional  tone  of  the 
story.  With  the  very  first  phrase  the  gloom  begins  to 
spread  over  the  pages,  and  not  a  sentence  thereafter  halts 
it.  The  power  of  it  overwhelms  all  else  and  makes  us 
forget  the  trifle  we  thus  far  know  about  the  narrator  and 
Usher. 

There  are  very  few  perfect  openings  of  this  fourth 
type,  and  the  reason  is  evident:  it  is  seldom  that  an 
event  in  the  direct  plot  action  can  be  told  without  re- 
vealing somethuig  about  the  people  and  places  participant 
in  it.     For  it  is  these  who  make  the  event. 

5.  A  Municipal  Report^  by  O.  Henry. 

East  is  East,  and  West  is  San  Francisco,  according  to 
Calif ornians.  Cahfomians  are  a  race  of  people;  they  are 
not  merely  inhabitants  of  a  State.  They  are  the  South- 
erners of  the  West.  Now,  Chicagoans  are  no  less  loyal 
to  their  city;  but  when  you  ask  them  why,  they  stammer 
and  speak  of  lake  fish  and  the  new  Odd  Fellows  Building. 
But  Califomians  go  into  detail. 

Of  course,  they  have  in  the  climate  an  argument  that 
is  good  for  half  an  hour  while  you  are  thinking  of  your 
coal  bills  and  heavy  underwear.  But  as  soon  as  they 
come  to  mistake  your  silence  for  conviction,  madness 
comes  upon  them,  and  they  picture  the  city  of  the  Golden 
Gate  as  the  Bagdad  of  the  New  World.  So  far,  as  a 
matter   of   opinion,    no   refutation   is   necessary.     But, 


THE  ORDER  OF  EVENTS  149 

dear  cousins  all  (from  Adam  and  Eve  descended),  it  is  a 
rash  one  who  will  lay  his  finger  on  the  map  and  say:  ''In 
this  town  there  can  be  no  romance — what  could  happen 
here?''  Yes,  it  is  a  bold  and  rash  deed  to  challenge  in 
one  sentence  history,  romance,  and  Rand  and  McNally. 

I  call  this  a  philosophical  overture  because  it  is  neither 
action  nor  description  nor  a  simple  essay-like  introduc- 
tion, but  rather  a  broad,  generalized  comm.ent  on  the 
cosmic  state  of  affairs  which  the  story  is  to  illustrate  or 
prove.  It  is  philosophical  because  generalized,  and  an 
overture  because,  to  fill  out  the  musical  analogy,  it  gives 
us  in  advance  the  theme  we  are  going  to  hear  developed. 
It  is,  of  course,  an  old  device  of  essayists  and  not  unknown 
to  medieval  minstrels.  Poe  used  it  perfectly  several 
times,  notably  in  The  Man  of  the  Crowd.  But  it  is 
Kipling  whom  we  have  to  thank  for  bringing  it  into 
vogue  of  late.  His  Plain  Tales  from  the  Hills  contains 
a  round  dozen  samples,  the  clearest  of  which  occur  in 
Thrown  Away  and  On  the  Strength  of  a  Likeness.  And 
since  them  half  a  hundred  authors  have  learned  to  turn 
the  same  trick  neatly. 

Truth  to  tell,  it  is  an  easy  trick;  or,  at  least,  much 
easier  than  plunging  headlong  into  the  story.  For  any 
cracker-barrel  orator  can  draw  a  hundred  glittering 
generalities  out  of  any  item  on  the  first  page  of  the  news- 
paper, as  deftly  as  a  magician  pulls  rabbits  from  a  hat; 
and  every  story  that  is  worth  telling  at  all  is  at  least 
as  prolific  as  newspaper  items.  Furthermore,  the  transi- 
tion from  a  universal  proposition  to  the  plot  action  follows 
three  simple  patterns,  which  we  may  name:  (1)  the  ex- 
ception, (2)  the  proof,  and  (3)  the  musing  that  finds  an 
answer.     The  first  appears  in  Kipling's  A  Germ-Destroyer, 

As  a  general  rule,  it  is  inexpedient  to  meddle  with 
questions  of  State  in  a  land  where  men  are  paid  to  work 
them  out  for  you.     This  tale  is  a  jiistiflahle  exception. 


150  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

Or  you  may  follow  this  second  model,  from  Miss 
YoughaVs  Sais  by  the  same  author: 

Some  people  say  that  there  is  no  romance  in  India. 
Those  people  are  wrong.  Our  lives  hold  quite  as  much 
romance  as  is  good  for  us.     Sometimes  more. 

Or,  thirdly,  you  may  pursue  subtler  and  lengthier 
musings;  frivolous  wisdom  such  as  O.  Henry  passes  out 
in  The  Venturers,  Psyche  and  the  P sky-scraper,  and  The 
Green  Door;  or  serious  reflections  such  as  Howells  traces 
in  A  Circle  in  the  Water.  Here  the  narrator  seems  to  be 
wondering  or  half-asserting  some  thought  when  suddenly 
the  thought  exemplifies  itself  in  an  incident. 

The  power  of  the  philosophical  overture  cannot  be 
denied.  Being  a  statement  of  fact,  or  at  least  having 
the  air  of  such,  it  draws  the  reader  into  a  serious  mood; 
and  this  mood  tends  to  perpetuate  itself  throughout  the 
reading  of  the  whole  narrative.  Only  a  very  well  man- 
aged dramatic  opening  attains  this  highly  desirable  result. 
Few  indeed  are  the  stories  which,  from  the  outset,  deceive 
us  into  feeling  that  they  are  history;  and,  of  these,  nearly 
all  either  sound  the  depths  of  life,  as  They  and  Without 
Benefit  of  Clergy  and  Will  of  the  Mill  do,  or  else  are  quasi- 
arguments  with  the  stories  proper  seemingly  tacked  on 
by  way  of  evidence.  Now,  this  latter  class  is  much 
larger  than  the  former.  And  when  we  ask  why,  we 
come  upon  the  one  noteworthy  exception  to  the  ranking 
of  the  ten  possible  openings. 

When  the  intrinsic  dramatic  quality  of  a  character  and 
the  plot  in  which  the  character  figures  is  mediocre,  the 
philosophical  overture  is  usually  better  than  a  direct-action 
opening. 

The  reason  for  this  is,  in.  the  narrowest  sense  of  the 
word,  technical.  I  mean,  it  is  not  to  be  found  in  the 
'pure  idea'  of  the  story,  much  less  in  the  nature  of  the 


THE  ORDER  OF  EVENTS  151 

character  depicted.     The  philosophical  overture    serves 
in  two  ways:  first, ^o  reinforce  the  single  effect  which,  in  pure 
dramatic  presentation,  may  be  weak;  and,  secondly,  to 
attract  the  reader  as  the  simple  narrative  cannot  do.^ 
6.  The  Descent  into  the  Maelstrom,  by  Poe. 

We  had  now  reached  the  summit  of  the  loftiest  crag. 
For  some  minutes  the  old  man  seemed  too  much  ex- 
hausted to  speak. 

"Not  long  ago,"  said  he  at  length,  "and  I  could  have 
guided  you  on  this  route  as  well  as  the  youngest  of  my 
sons;  but,  about  three  years  past,  there  happened  to  me 
an  event  such  as  never  happened  before  to  mortal  man — 
or,  at  least,  such  as  no  man  survived  to  tell  of — and  the 
six  hours  of  deadly  terror  which  I  then  endured  have 
broken  me  up,  body  and  soul.  You  suppose  me  a  very 
old  man — but  I  am  not.  It  took  less  than  a  single  day  to 
change  those  hairs  from  jet  black  to  white,  to  weaken  my 
limbs,  and  unstring  my  nerves,  so  that  I  tremble  at  the 
least  exertion,  and  am  frightened  at  a  shadow.  Do  you 
know,  I  can  scarcely  look  over  this  little  cliff  without 
getting  giddy?" 

The  'little  cliff'  upon  whose  edge  he  had  so  carelessly 
thrown  himself  down  to  rest  that  the  weightier  portion 
of  his  body  hung  over  it,  while  he  was  only  kept  from 
falling  by  the  tenure  of  his  elbow  on  its  extreme  and 
slippery  edge — this  *  little  cliff'  arose,  a  sheer  and  unob- 
structed precipice  of  black  shining  rock,  some  fifteen  or 
sixteen  hundred  feet  from  the  world  of  crags  beneath  us. 
Nothing  would  have  tempted  me  to  be  within  half  a 
dozen  yards  of  its  brink.  .  .  .  (The  rest  of  the 
opening  describes  the  Maelstrom,  as  seen  from  this, 
cliff.) 

1  These  two  services  ought  to  be  identical,  but  are  not.  Often 
the  philosophical  overture  touches  vividly  upon  some  idea  which 
bobs  up  in  the  story  more  or  less  incidentally.  And,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  sometimes  reinforces  the  single  effect  without  interesting 
the  reader.  In  both  cases  the  story  plot  is  almost  certain  to  be  seri- 
ously defective.  If  its  single  effect  cannot  appeal  to  us  in  essay 
form,  it  is  too  confused  or  too  artificial  ever  to  appeal  in  any  dra- 
matic form. 


152  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

Here  we  have  the  setting,  the  dominant  character,  and 
the  single  effect  consummately  drawn  in  their  first  out- 
lines. But  notice  how  the  action  differs  from  that  of 
Xingu.  There  the  events  were  the  first  of  the  plot  which 
ensued;  here  they  have  only  a  remote,  accidental  connec- 
tion with  the  old  fisherman's  nerve-racking  adventure. 
He  leads  the  visitor  to  the  cliff  and,  while  the  latter 
gazes  upon  the  awful  waters  below,  tells  the  story. 

For  the  character  story  and  its  varieties  this  opening 
rarely  succeeds.  Daudet  sometimes  bends  it  to  his 
purposes  in  a  swift  and  masterly  fashion,  as,  for  example, 
in  The  Siege  of  Berlin: 

We  were  going  up  Avenue  des  Champs-Elysees  with 

Dr.  V. ,  asking  the  shell-riddled  walls  and  the  side 

walks  torn  up  by  grape-shot  for  the  story  of  the  siege  of 
Paris,  when,  just  before  we  reached  the  Rondpoint  de 
TEtoile,  the  doctor  stopped  and,  pointing  to  one  of  the 
great  corner  houses  so  proudly  grouped  about  the  Arc  de 
Triomphe,  said  to  me: 

"Do  you  see  those  four  closed  windows  up  there  on  that 
balcony?  In  the  early  days  of  August,  that  terrible 
August  of  last  year,  so  heavily  laden  with  storms  and 
disasters,  I  was  called  there  to  see  a  case  of  apoplexy.  It 
was  the  apartment  of  Colonel  Jouve,  a  cuirassier  of  the 
First  Empire,  an  old  enthusiast  on  the  subject  of  glory 
and  patriotism,  who  had  come  to  live  on  the  Champs- 
Elysees,  in  an  apartment  with  a  balcony,  at  the  outbreak 
of  the  war.  Guess  why !  In  order  to  witness  the  triumph- 
ant return  of  our  troops!  Poor  old  fellow!  The  news  of 
Wissembourg  reached  him  just  as  he  was  leaving  the 
table.  When  he  read  the  name  of  Napoleon  at  the  foot 
of  that  bulletin  of  defeat,  he  fell  like  a  log." 

There  is  wonderful  skill  in  this  seemingly  simple  open- 
ing. Within  the  space  of  two  short  paragraphs  it  melts, 
like  a  dissolving  stereopticon  view,  from  the  indirect  to  the 
direct  action.  Nevertheless  it  is  the  exception  that 
proves  our  rule;  for,  upon  close  analysis,  you  will  find  that 


THE  ORDER  OF  EVENTS  153 

the  indirect  action  in  it,  which  ends  with  'Guess  why!' 
does  not  depict  the  character  trait  of  Jouve  that  counts  in 
the  story.  We  are  casually  told  before  that  he  is  a  chau- 
vinist, but  not  that  his  chauvinism  sets  things  agoing.  The 
instant  the  narrating  physician  has  pointed  out  the  apart- 
ment and  named  its  former  occupant  he  takes  up  the  main 
plot  action,  and  so  deftly  that  the  reader  perceives  no 
change  in  the  narrative  quahty.  But  the  change  is 
there;  so  Daudet  has  not  used  the  sixth  opening  type 
straight,  he  has  bent  it. 

This  opening  is  very  useful  in  the  atmosphere  story, 
and  in  the  adventure  story.  The  Descent  into  the  Madstrjju 
is  both  of  these.  The  interested  student  may  easil;  figure 
out  for  himself  its  utility  there. 

7.  A  Second-Rate  Woman,  by  Kipling. 

^'Dressed!  Don't  tell  me  that  woman  ever  dressed  in 
her  life.  She  stood  in  the  middle  of  the  room  while  her 
ayah — no,  her  husband — it  must  have  been  a  man — 
threw  her  clothes  at  her.  She  then  did  her  hair  with  her 
fingers,  and  rubbed  her  bonnet  in  the  flue  under  the 
bed.  I  know  she  did,  as  well  as  if  I  had  assisted  at  the 
orgie.     Who  is  she?"  said  Mrs.  Hauksbee. 

''Don't!"  said  Mrs.  Mallowe  feebly.  "You  make  my 
head  ache.  I'm  miserable  today."  (Then  follows  more 
about  the  Dowd,  who  is  the  heroine.) 

This  opening  is  weak,  but  not  in  every  respect.  It 
often  does  succeed  in  illuminating  character,  as  in  the 
above  specimen.  But  it  is  long-winded,  devious,  and 
hence  confusing.  If  you  must  depict  a  person  indirectly, 
you  have  only  two  simple  and  plastic  devices:  let  some- 
body state  his  impressions  of  the  person,  or  else  depict 
the  effect  the  person  has  upon  people  or  affairs.  The 
former  device  is  hard  to  keep  within  bounds;  as  in  our 
illustration,  when  you  let  two  women  talk  about  a  third, 
not  even  a  Kipling  can  throttle  them  in  time  to  save  the 


154  SHORT   STORY   WRITING 

story.*  The  second  device,  on  the  other  hand,  tends  to 
become  an  independent  episode,  readable  perhaps  for  its 
own  sake  but  leading  nowhere.  Of  course,  if  you  want  to 
mislead  your  reader,  you  cannot  do  better  than  to  use  it. 
Hence  in  the  pure  surprise  story  and  in  humorous  narra- 
tive (which  calls  for  incongruity  and  breaks)  it  may  be 
recommended. 
8.  A  Voluntary  Death,  by  Copp6e. 

I  knew  the  poet  Louis  Miraz  very  well,  in  the  old 
times  in  the  Latin  Quarter,  where  we  used  to  take  our 
meals  together  at  a  cremerie  on  the  Rue  de  Seine,  kept 
by  an  old  Polish  woman  whom  we  nicknamed  Princess 
Chocolawska,  on  account  of  the  enormous  bowl  of  creme 
and  chocolate  which  she  exposed  daily  in  the  show 
window  of  her  shop.  It  was  possible  to  dine  there  for 
ten  sous,  with  *two  breads',  an  'ordinaire'  for  thirty 
centimes,  and  a  'small  coffee'. 

Some  who  were  very  nice  spent  a  sou  more  for  a  napkin. 

(Then  follows  a  description  of  the  other  habitues  of 
the  cremerie.) 

This  is  a  wasteful  opening  and  much  less  effective  than 
the  preceding  one.  In  the  character  story  the  setting  is 
almost  invariably  the  least  consequential  factor.  Why 
then  should  it  have  ,one  of  the  most  important  paragraphs 
reserved  for  it  exclusively?  This  question  becomes  doubly 
pertinent  when,  as  in  the  present  case,  neither  the  action 
nor  the  setting  which  it  reveals  is  closely  connected  with 
the  chief  events.  Coppee  advances  his  story  in  only  a 
trifling  degree;  he  establishes  the  acquaintance  of  the 
narrator  with  the  poet  hero,  and  nothing  more.  The 
Polish  woman,  the  chocolate,  the  hoary  ex-dictator,  the 
Buddhist  student,  and  all  the  rest  of  the  scene  count  for 

1  Probably  Kipling,  in  the  story  cited,  wanted  to  show  up  the 
malicious  garrulity  of  the  Dowd's  detractors.  If  so,  the  opening 
is  more  justifiable,  although  still  overdone. 


THE  ORDER  OF  EVENTS  155 

absolutely  nothing  in  the  career  of  Louis  Miraz.  Had 
all  the  good  words  wasted  on  them  been  spent  on  the 
splendid  bravery  of  Miraz,  the  tale  would  have  become  a 
short  story. 

9.  A  Passion  in  the  Desert,  by  Balzac. 

"The  sight  was  fearful!"  she  cried,  as  we  left  the  men- 
agerie of  Monsieur  Martin. 

She  had  been  watching  that  daring  performer  work 
with  his  hyenas,  to  speak  in  the  style  of  the  posters. 

"How  on  earth,"  she  continued,  "can  he  have  tamed 
his  animals  so  as  to  be  sure  of  enough  of  their  affection 
to—" 

"That  fact,  which  seems  to  you  a  problem,"  I  replied, 
interrupting  her,  "is  however  perfectly  natural." 

"Oh!"  she  exclaimed,  while  an  incredulous  smile 
flickered  on  her  lip. 

"Do  you  mean  to  say' that  you  think  beasts  are  en- 
tirely devoid  of  passions?"  I  asked  her.  "Let  me  tell 
you  that  we  can  safely  give  them  credit  for  all  the  vices 
due  to  our  state  of  civihzation." 

This  type  is  clumsy  and  thoroughly  antiquated.  To 
find  a  skilful  author  dallying  with  it,  you  must  go  back 
to  Balzac  and  Turgenieff;  back  to  the  days  when  nobody 
counted  words,  and  men  had  not  yet  thought  of  the  short 
story  as  an  art  having  its  own  definite  laws.  The  Russian 
novelist,  in  particular,  exhibits  the  most  amazing  indif- 
ference to  structure;  many  of  his  tales,  such  as  Andrei 
Kolosoff  and  The  Jew,  exceed  the  crudity  of  a  modern 
tyro  in  their  openings.  The  wretchedest  hack-writers 
know  better  today  than  to  squander  words  in  letting 
some  imaginary  person  tell  your  reader  that  you  are 
going  to  tell  a  story  about  a  certain  subject.  It  is  this 
and  no  more  that  Balzac's  opening  accomplishes. 

Weak  as  it  is,  though,  it  often  combines  successfully 
with  the  philosophical  overture.  That  is  to  say,  if  the 
indirect  action  takes  the  form  of  a  discussion  which  not 


156  SHORT   STORY  WRITING 

only  reveals  the  theme  or  single  effect  but  also  generalizes 
broadly  and  argumentatively  about  it,  the  opening  may  be 
very  lively.  Again  we  turn  to  Daudet  for  an  exceedingly 
perfect  and  ingeniously  unobtrusive  specimen:  the  be- 
ginning of  his  pretty  fable-story,  The  Goat  of  M.  Seguin. 

To  M.  Pierre  Gringoire,  Lyrical  Poet,  at  Paris. 

You  will  always  be  the  same,  my  poor  Gringoire! 

Think  of  it!  You  are  offered  the  place  of  reporter  on 
a  respectable  Paris  newspaper,  and  you  have  the  as- 
surance to  refuse!  Why  look  at  yourself,  unhappy 
youth!  Look  at  that  worn-out  doublet,  those  dilapidated 
breeches,  that  gaunt  face  which  cries  aloud  that  it  is 
hungry!  And  this  is  where  your  passion  for  rhyme  has 
brought  you !  This  is  the  result  of  your  ten  years  of  loyal 
service  among  the  pages  of  my  lord  Apollo !  Aren't  you 
ashamed? 

Be  a  reporter,  you  idiot!  Be  a  reporter!  You  will  earn 
honest  crowns,  you  will  have  your  special  seat  at  Brebant's; 
and  you  will  be  able  to  appear  every  first  night  with  a 
new  feather  in  your  cap. 

No?  You  will  not?  You  propose  to  remain  perfectly 
free  to  the  end?  Well,  just  listen  to  the  story  of  Monsieur 
Seguin's  goat.  You  will  see  what  one  gains  by  attempting 
to  remain  free. 

Notice  carefully  in  what  respect  this  differs  from  the 
opening  of  A  Passion  in  the  Desert.  In  both  the  action 
is  indirect.  In  both  all  that  is  revealed  of  the  story  is  the 
theme.  But  in  Balzac's  opening  the  theme  is  merely 
stated  in  the  midst  of  an  extraneous  incident,  while  in 
Daudet's  it  is  'played  up',  argued,  and  enlivened  prettily, 
with  irrelevant  but  illustrative  action.  Between  the  two 
manners,  the  static  and  the  dynamic,  lies  the  whole  gulf 
that  separates  bungling  from  art. 

This  combination  opening  is  best  suited  to  stories  having 
well-marked  themes  or  strong  single  effects.  But  it 
^uuld   be  used  only  when   the   entanglements  of  the 


THE  ORDER  OF  EVENTS  157 

plot  happen  to  make  a  direct  action  opening  awkward 
or  dull. 

10.  A  Taste  of  Honey,  by  Mary  Wilkins  Freeman. 

The  long,  low,  red-painted  cottage  was  raised  above 
the  level  of  the  street,  on  an  embankment  separated 
into  two  terraces.  Steep  stone  steps  led  up  the  terraces. 
They  were  covered  with  green,  slimy  moss,  and  little 
ferns  and  weeds  sprang  out  of  every  crack.  A  wall  of 
fiat  slate  stones  led  from  them  to  the  front  door,  which 
was  painted  green,  sagged  on  its  hinges,  and  had  a  brass 
knocker. 

The  whole  yard  and  the  double  banks  were  covered  with 
a  tall,  waving  crop  of  red-top  and  herds-grass  and  red  and 
white  clover.     It  was  in  the  height  of  haying  time. 

A  grassy  wheel-track  led  round  the  side  of  the  house  to 
a  barn  dashed  with  streaks  of  red  paint. 

Off  to  the  left  stretched  some  waving  pasture  land, 
and  a  garden  patch  marked  by  bean-poles  and  glancing 
corn  blades,  with  a  long  row  of  bee-hives  showing  in  the 
midst  of  it. 

A  rusty  open  buggy  and  a  lop-eared  white  horse  stood 
in  the  drive -opposite  the  side  door  of  the  house. 

It  seems  incredible  that  a  writer  who  could  imagine 
the  genuine  pathos  and  tragedy  of  this  story  could  stumble 
into  it  so  clumsily.  The  opening  might  pass  in  the 
loosest  impressionistic  sketch,  which  is  not  supposed  to 
get  anywhere — and  seldom  does.  But,  in  a  short  story, 
which  A  Taste  of  Honey  ought  to  be,  all  these  irrelevant 
minutiae  of  the  landscape  are  so  many  mosquitoes  buzzing 
around  the  plot.  They  do  not  spoil  the  plot,  but  they 
bother  the  reader  who  wishes  to  reach  it.  I  trust  that 
no  argument  is  needed  to  condemn  them.  The  student 
who  does  not  sense  their  impropriety  will,  I  fear,  never 
grasp  the  short  story.  Incidentally  be  it  said  that  the 
ability  to  unreel  such  description  is  no  mark  of  literary 
power.  He  is  a  dull  high  school  graduate  who  cannot 
equal  it. 


158  SHORT  STORY   WRITING 


Exercises 


Analyze  the  openings  of  the  following  stories  and  tell 
TV^hich  type  each  is.     Also  criticize  the  fitness  of  each. 

Hopper,  J. — Memories  in  Men's  Souls  {American, 
Feb.,  1911). 

Johnson,  0. — One  Hundred  in  the  Dark  (Saturday  Ev. 
Post,  Oct.  21,  1911). 

Moore,  G. — The  Exile  (in  The  Untilled  Field:  Lippincott, 
1903). 

Coppee,  F. — An  Accident  (in  Ten  Tales,  Harper's,  1890). 

James,  H. — Collaboration. 

Williams,  J.  L. — The  Honeymoon  (in  The  Married  Life 
of  the  Frederic  Carrolls,  Scribner's,  1910). 

Freeman,  Mary  Wilkins — A  Humble  Romance, 


THE  CLOSING  EVENT  159 


b.  The  closing  event.  In  comparison  with  the  opening, 
the  closing  event  is  no  problem  at  all.  The  variety  of 
endings  is  much  less,  and  one's  choice  is  not  supremely 
important.  Furthermore,  the  material  is  more  plastic 
and  may  be  experimented  upon  freely,  without  involving 
radical  changes  in  the  body  of  the  story. 

There  are  three  types  of  endings: 

i.     The  direct  denouement. 

ii.    The  significant  aftermath. 

iii.  Interpretative  comment. 

i.  The  direct  denouement.  This  is  the  ideal  finish  of  the 
pure  dramatic  story.  If  action  and  character  develop- 
ment have  advanced  apace;  if,  in  the  supreme  crisis,  all 
that  remains  for  us  to  learn  is  how  the  hero,  being  what  we 
know  him  to  be,  meets  it;  then  the  author  who  tells  us 
more  only  offends  us.  Few  are  the  gems  which  are  cut 
so  true  up  to  the  last  stroke;  hence  this  finish  is  rare.  It 
is  more  often  approximated  in  the  dramatic  mystery 
story.     We  find  it  in  Poe's  masterpiece,  Ldgeia: 

.  I  stirred  not — but  gazed  upon  the  appari- 
tion. There  was  a  mad  disorder  in  my  thoughts — a 
tumult  unappeasable.  Could  it  indeed  be  the  living 
Rowena  who  confronted  me?  Could  it  indeed  be  Rowena 
at  all — the  fair-haired,  the  blue-eyed  Lady  Rowena 
Trevanion  of  Tremaine?  Why,  why  should  I  doubt  it? 
—  had  she  then  grown  taller  since  her 
malady?  What  inexpressible  madness  seized  me  with 
that  thought?  One  bound,  and  I  had  reached  her  feet! 
Shrinking  from  my  touch,  she  let  fall  from  her  head, 
unloosened,  the  ghastly  cerements  which  had  confined  it 
and  there  streamed  forth,  into  the  rushing  atmosphere  of 
the  chamber,  huge  masses  of  long  and  dishevelled  hair; 
it  was  blacker  than  the  raven's  wings  of  the  midnight! 
And  now  slowly  opened  the  eyes  of  the  figure  which  stood 
before  me.     ''Here  then,   at  least,"   I  shrieked  aloud, 


160  SHORT   STORY   WRITING 

''can  I  never — can  I  never  be  mistaken — these  are  the 
full,  and  the  black,  and  the  wild  eyes — of  my  lost  love 
—of  the  lady— of  the  LADY  LIGEIA." 

It  is  inconceivable  that  a  better  denouement  could  be 
fashioned.  The  very  last  word  alone  lifts  the  veil. 
Until  it  has  been  read,  the  reader's  imagination  is  led  off 
in  a  different  path.  Unless  he  has  analyzed  as  he  goes, 
he  is  quite  sure  that  the  Lady  Rowena  is  returning  to 
life.  And,  fancying  this,  he  may  suspect  that  the  story 
breaks  in  twain  clumsily;  the  earlier  account  of  Ligeia 
seeming  irrelevant  to  the  resurrection  of  her  successor. 
But,  when  that  one  key  word  falls  under  his  eye,  the 
entire  phantasmagorical  welter  of  bewilderments  and 
horror  orders  itself  into  a  clear  plot  whose  theme  Poe  has 
thrice  sounded:  'Man  doth  not  yield  him  to  the 
angels,  nor  unto  death  utterly,  save  only  through  the 
weakness  of  his  feeble  will'. 

Probably  few  plots  admit  of  such  manipulation.  The 
dramatic  form  is  too  intense  to  suit  most  material.  To 
be  more  accurate,  most  themes  do  not  focus  so  sharply 
upon  one  instant's  revelation.  Their  solutions  are 
complex  and  require  a  certain  elaboration.  Xingu, 
for  instance,  reaches  its  denouement  when  the  Lunch 
Club  consults  the  encyclopaedia  and  learns  that  the 
topic  of  their  learned  conversation  is  not  a  religion  nor  a 
book  but  a  river  in  South  America.  But,  though  the 
denouement  is  here  reached,  it  is  not  finished  in  that  act. 
The  story  demands  that  every  member  of  the  Lunch 
Club  realize  minutely  how  Mrs.  Roby  has  hoaxed  it,  and 
that  the  Club  'do  something  about  it'.  Inevitably  all 
this  must  follow,  not  precede,  the  discovery  in  the  en- 
cyclopaedia. Again,  there  are  other  themes  which,  though 
they  may  be  wrought  into  action  with  the  Ligeia  finish, 
ought  not  to  end  so,  inasmuch  as  the  dramatic  quality  of 
their  complication  is  too  weak  to  harmonize  with  this 


THE  CLOSING  EVENT  161 

most  intense  of  all  dramatic  denouements.  Low-grade 
magazines  and  Sunday  Supplements  reek  with  mechani- 
cally perfect  specimens  of  it.  Their  detective  stories  and 
other  tales  of  mystery  keep  the  reader  guessing  up  to 
the  final  paragraph.  Nevertheless,  they  fall  flat;  and  the 
reason  is  that  their  form  exceeds  their  material.  The 
shape  and  motion  of  a  story  is  visible  in  each,  but  the 
stuff  of  life  is  not  therein. 

This  failure,  alas,  is  all  too  easy.  It  is  easy  to  tangle 
your  heroes  and  villains,  and  to  manufacture  myste- 
ries. It  is  as  easy  as  inventing  a  cipher  code  or  conceal- 
ing a  fact,  and  often  it  is  nothing  more.  Now,  the 
difficulty  of  solving  a  puzzle  or  discovering  a  way  out 
of  a  predicament  is  usually  out  of  all  proportion  to  the 
importance  of  the  puzzle  or  predicament.  The  brain 
power  that  has  been  spent  on  pigs-in-clover,  charades, 
and  jig-saw  pictures  might  have  abolished  war;  and  the 
manual  labor  that  has  gone  into  them  would  have  dug 
the  Panama  Canal.  In  real  life,  where  it  is  stylish  to  be 
absurd,  this  disproportion  of  effort  to  result  is  allowed; 
but  in  art,  which  is  little  more  than  the  passion  for  fitness 
expressing  itself,  it  is  the  unpardonable  sin.  The  mountain 
that  brings  forth  a  mouse  is  brother  to  the  author  who 
works  up  a  tense,  breathless  perplexity  and  then  clears 
it  up  with  an  episode  which  shows  the  complication 
to  be  trifling.  In  the  world  of  beauty,  whither  he  would 
lead  us,  he  may  affect  us  seriously  only 'with  serious 
affairs,  and  deeply  only  with  deep,  and  romantically  only 
with  romantic.  The  humorist  alone  is  privileged  to  toy 
with  the  incongruous. 

I  cannot  drop  this  topic  without  urging  the  student  to 
study  carefully  the  maturer  stories  of  O.  Henry,  who 
surpasses  all  writers  past  and  present  in  his  mastery  of 
the  direct  denouement.  What  a  host  of  his  complications 
do  not  solve  themselves  until  the  last  fifty  words!    There 


162  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

is  The  Furnished  Room,  with  its  startling,  pathetic  com- 
plication clearing  in  Mrs.  Purdy's  last  remark:  *' She'd 
a-been  called  handsome,  as  you  say,  but  for  that  mole 
she  had  a-growin'  by  her  left  eyebrow".  There  is  Tohin's 
Palm,  with  its  preposterously  funny  reunion  of  the  lovers 
in  the  last  ten  seconds.  And,  finest  of  all,  though  by  no 
means  the  last  in  the  list,  is  The  Municipal  Report,  with 
its  yellow  horn  overcoat  button  the  size  of  a  fifty-cent 
piece  clearing  up  a  dark  mystery  and  proving  the  romance 
of  dull  places.  There  is  no  exceeding  the  perfection  of 
these  denouements.  One  must  admire  them  with  a  touch 
of  awe,  even  though  one  dislikes  the  slap-dash,  slangy, 
kinetoscopic  hurry  of  the  stories.  Nowhere  outside  of 
Poe  and  Maupassant  are  they  equalled. 
>^  ii.  The  significant  aftermath.  This  is  the  commonest 
ending  and  usually  the  nTosT  appropriate.  It  consists  of 
some  little  event  which  showsj^recisely  how  the  char- 
acters are  taking  the  denoufem^t.  Sometimes  it  in- 
tensifies the  latter,  but  more  often  only  clears  away  the 
last  uncertainty  about  it.  The  length  depends  entirely 
upon  the  particular  denouement,  and  the  importance 
\/  of  showing  the  characters'  reaetioja^-te— it. y In  Xingu 
the  aftermath  is  quite  elaborate,  and  necessarily  so. 
It  begins  after  Mrs.  Ballinger  says:  ^'And  they're  shrieking 
over  us  at  this  moment", — and  continues  to  the  very  end.^ 
In  Coppee's  The  Substitute  it  is  swift  and  short.     The  de- 

1  The  long  conversation  in  which  the  ladies  fit  together  Mrs. 
Roby's  remarks  and  bring  them  into  harmony  with  the  encyclo- 
paedia's statements  about  Xingu  is  not  aftermath,  but  denouement. 
Some  readers  who  are  over-fond  of  the  Maupassant  model  feel 
that  Mrs.  Roby's  previous  connection  with  South  America  should 
have  been  brought  out  in  the  opening  of  the  story,  so  that  this 
long  explanation  might  be  dispensed  with,  at  the  very  point  where 
things  should  rush  along  at  top  speed.  But  analysis  proves  this 
opinion  wrong.  The  single  effect  depends  absolutely  upon  keeping 
the  nature  of  Xingu  hidden  until  the  denouement. 


THE  CLOSING  EVENT  163 

nouement  is  over  when  Jean  Frangois  takes  Savinien's 
crime  upon  himself  and  holds  out  his  hands  for  the  hand- 
cuffs, laughing  at  the  police.     After  that: 

To  day  he  is  at  Cayenne,  condemned  for  life  as  an  in- 
corrigible. 

Observe  how  much  this  little  sentence  accomplishes. 
It  fixes  the  outcome,  past  all  misunderstanding.  Omit 
it,  and  the  reader  might  wonder  whether  Jean  Fran- 
cois was  as  great  a  hero  as  he  led  Savinien  to  think. 
The  galleys  are  terrible  places;  but  did  the  ex-convict 
end  up  there?  Might  he  not  have  concealed  his  identity, 
been  sentenced  as  a  first  offender,  and  let  off  with  a  six 
months'  sentence?  Or  might  he  not  have  escaped  again 
from  the  thongs  of  justice?  Perhaps  the  reader  might 
not  frame  these  doubts  consciously;  he  might  only  be 
less  profoundly  impressed  by  the  shortened  version.  But 
this  weaker  effect  would  be  due  to  the  indecisiveness  of 
the  denouement. 

iii.  Interpretative  Comment.  This  is  the  counterpart 
of  the  philosophical  overture.  Like  it,  it  contains  no 
action;  unlike  it,  it  need  not  consist  of  generalizations. 
It  may  be  no  more  than  a  summary  and  a  sentiment,  as 
in  London's  The  Heathen: 

And  so  passed  Otoo,  who  saved  me  and  made  me  a 
man,  and  who  'saved  me  in  the  end.  We  met  in  the 
maw  of  a  hurricane  and  parted  in  the  maw  of  a  shark, 
with  seventeen  intervening  years  of  comradeship  the 
like  of  which  I  dare  to  assert  have  never  befallen  two 
men,  the  one  brown  and  the  other  white.  If  Jehovah 
be  from  his  high  place  watching  every  sparrow  fall,  not 
least  in  His  Kingdom  shall  be  Otoo,  the  one  heathen  of 
Bora  Bora.  And  if  there  be  no  place  for  him  in  that 
Kingdom,  then  will  I  have  none  of  it. 

Or  it  may  return  to  the  opening  event,  as  in  Harris 
Merton  Lyon's  horribly  true  sketch  of  American  village 


164  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

life,  entitled  $448.00.     Somewhat  abridged,  the  opening 
runs  thus: 

In  fourteen  decillion  B.C.,  .  .  .  this  stubborn 
planet  upon  which  we  so  carelessly  shuffle  our  feet  began 
a  series  of  Experiments  toward  an  End.  .  .  .  At 
first  she  tried  for  trees,  and  got  trees.  Then  snails, 
clams,  jellyfish.  Then,  brooding  over  her  intent,  she 
madethe  jellyfish  climb  up  out  of  the  sea.  .  .  .  Then 
she  watched  yearningly  through  the  morose  years  the 
light  and  the  air  beat  down  upon  the  jellyfish  and  irritated 
it.  .  .  After  three  hundred  million  jellyfish  had  died 
in  the  process,  she  slumbered  and  considered  the  process 
complete.  After  fourteen  decilhon,  one  thousand  eight 
hundred  and  seventy-six  years  had  passed,  she  rested. 
.  for  the  End  of  her  Experiments  had  come. 
The  numberless  millions  of  jellyfishes  and  the  superb 
march  of  countless  years  had  produced  Leander  Percy 
Johnson. 

Then  follows  the  story  of  Leander *s  career;  a  story 
made  twice  horrible  by  the  streak  of  humor  in  its  telling. 
The  dramatic  end  comes  when  the  army  surgeons  pull 
Leander,  U.  S.  V.  and  fever  victim,  out  of  his  storm- 
wrecked  Chickamauga  tent,  dead.  Then  follow  two 
endings,  the  first  an  unnecessary  aftermath,  and  the  second 
the  following  brief  interpretative  comment: 

And  the  old  earth  groaned  and  began  it  all  over  again. 
For  Leander  had  returned  to  the  jellyfish  whence  he 
came.     He  had  gone  back  to  fourteen  decillion  B.C. 

A  third  excellent  variation  is  a  return  to  the  philo- 
sophical overture.  In  this  wise  Howells  admirably 
turns  the  close  of  A  Circle  in  the  Water.  The  story 
opens,  you  recall,  with  the  narrator's  musing  over  the 
consequences  of  good  and  evil  and  over  the  ever- 
widening  circles  made  by  pebbles  cast  into  the  pool. 
And,  after  Tedham  has  been  restored  to  his  daughter, 


THE  CLOSING  EVENT  165 

comes  this  ending,  which  integrates  perfectly  with  the 
final  action: 

.  So  far  as  human  vision  can  perceive,  the 
trouble  he  made,  the  evil  he  did,  is  really  at  an  end. 
Love,  which  alone  can  arrest  the  consequences  of  wrong, 
had  ended  it,  and  in  certain  luminous  moments  it  seemed 
to  us  that  we  had  glimpsed,  in  our  witness  of  this  ex- 
perience, an  infinite  compassion  encompassing  our  whole 
being  like  a  sea,  where  every  trouble  of  our  sins  and 
sorrows  must  cease  at  last  like  a  circle  in  the  water. 

Were  we  here  cataloguing  all  types  of  endings  which  have 
been  used  by  good  writers,  we  should  have  to  mention, 
among  others,  two  forms  of  the  significant  aftermath 
and  two  of  the  interpretative  comment.  The  first  pair 
are  (a)  the  effect  of  the  plot  action  upon  a  character  in 
the  story,  and  (b)  its  effect  upon  the  narrator  or  hearer 
outside  of  the  story.  The  second  pair  are  (a)  a  comment 
by  a  character,  and  (b)  one  by  the  narrator  outside  of 
the  story.  (When  the  narrator  happens  to  be  a  character 
in  the  story,  we  have  case  (a)  in  both  instances.)  These 
distinctions  need  not  concern  us  here;  for  they  have  to 
do  with  the  point  of  view  from  which  each  particular 
story  is  told.  The  serious  problems  raised  by  the  point 
of  view  will  soon  be  discussed.  It  is  enough  to  notice 
in  the  present  connection  that  there  is  one  ending  which 
is  to  be  shunned  whenever  possible,  namely  the  second 
type  of  aftermath.  This  occurs  in  its  most  deadly  form 
in  Turgenieff's  Andrei  Kolosoff: 

''And  what  became  of  Varya?"  asked  some  one. 
"I  don't  know,"  replied  the  story-teller. 
We  all  rose  and  went  our  various  ways. 

Could  anything  jerk  the  reader  more  violently  out  of 
the  imaginary  world  in  which  Kolosoff  lives?  And  to  less 
purpose?  The  author  might  better  have  sold  the  space  of 


166  SHORT   STORY   WRITING 

these  three  atrocious  lines  to  a  patent  medicine  quack 
for  advertising  purposes. 

When,  however,  such  an  ending  is  combined  with 
interpretative  comment,  it  becomes  much  more  endur- 
able, as  in  Hopper's  Memories  in  Men's  Souls.  At  best, 
though,  it  is  a  makeshift,  to  be  avoided  whenever 
possible. 


DISTRIBUTION   OF    EVENTS  167 


c.  The  distribution  of  events  throughout  the  plot  action. 
To  the  casual  scanner  of  magazines  the  dramatic  patterns 
of  stories  seem  infinitely  numerous.  To  the  hardened  pro- 
fessional reader  they  reduce  to  a  half-dozen,  and  some- 
times even  this  half-dozen  tends  to  shrink.  The  popular 
impression  derives  from  the  natural  and  proper  blending 
of  the  plot  action  with  the  'trimmings'  in  the  reader's 
mind.  The  author  forecasts,  deceives,  comments,  sup- 
presses, and  bursts  into  description  in  a  multitude  of 
manners;  and,  the  more  skilful  he,  the  more  deceivingly 
all  these  touches  fuse  with  the  broad  sweep  of  the  plot. 
This  is  as  it  should  be;  for  the  machinery  of  the  story 
should  be  concealed  no  less  than  are  the  wing  lights  and 
the  thunder-drum  of  the  theatre.  But  it  j^roduces  the 
illusion  of  a  boundless  variety  of  narrative  types.  V^ 

Tfee-fadH»,  very  few  first-class  stories  deviate  widely  \ 
from  the  old,  familiar  pattern  of  the  drama.  There  are 
three  movements  (corresponding  to  the  three  acts  of  the 
modern  play).  In  the  first  three  factors  appear:  (a) 
the  setting,  (b)  the  characters,  and  (c)  the  generating 
"circumstances;  that  is,  those  which  give  rise  to  the  ensuing 
complication.  The  second  movement  presents  two  classes 
of  episodes:  (a)  the  complication,  and  (b)  the  reaction  of 
the  characters  to  it.  This  reaction  often  bulks  large. 
The  third  movement  gives  (a)  the  crucial  situation 
(climax),  and  (b)  the  denouement  (with  aftermath,  if 
one  is  needed).  It  is  this  pattern  which  orders  the 
episodes.  And  you  should  never  depart  from  it  unless 
something  in  the  single  effect  which  you  seek  lor  in  the 
specific  texture  of  your  plot  action  compels  2/o^y^  This  is  ^ 
a  commandment  not  because  the  pattern  is  as  old  and  \ 
venerable  as  Aristotle,  but  because  it  is  so  obviously 


168  SHORT   STORY  WRITING 

the  strongest  dramatic  sequence  that  people  long  ago 
discovered  it  and  agreed  upon  it. 

This  pattern  carries  with  it  several  implications: 

1.  Telescope  the  events  within  each  -movement  as  much  as 
possible.  That  is,  make  each  episode  develop  all  the  story 
factors  in  its  movement. 

2.  //  the  events  cannot  he  telescoped,  depict  first  those 
which  demand  the  greater  amount  of  pure  description,  except 
insofar  as  the  single  effect  or  dramatic  sequence  forbids 
this. 

3.  Transitions  are  best  effected  by  telescoping  the  last 
event  of  one  movement  with  the  first  event  of  the  next. 

4.  The  natural  order  of  events  may  be  altered  in  only  two 
cases:  (a)  when  the  denouement  can  be  concealed  up  to  the 
proper  instant  in  no  other  way,  and  (b)  when  the  plot  action 
is  shaped  by  some  character's  learning  the  episodes  in  their 
false  order. 

Another  quartet  of  rules  might  be  laid  down,  but  the 
learner  will  automatically  master  them  as  soon  as  he  has 
grasped  those  we  have  given.  And  now  a  word  about 
these. 

1.  We  have  repeatedly  seen  that  the  single  effect  at 
which  the  short  story  aims  demands  the  emplojmient 
of  a  minimum  of  material;  and  this  fact  alone  is  enough 
to  warrant  the  first  rule.  In  strict  logic,  this  rule  is  not 
a  rule  of  arrangement,  but  rather  one  for  escaping  the 
problem  of  arrangement.  You  will  see  this,  once  you 
consider  an  extreme  illustration.  Suppose  you  were  able 
to  depict  adequately  in  one  incident  the  setting,  the 
generating  circumstances,  and  the  characters.  Would 
you  have  to  worry  over  the  next  event?  Not  at  all. 
You  would  go  straight  to  the  complication  and  character 
trait  of  the  second  movement.  And  if  you  could  also 
telescope  these  perfectly  into  one  episode,  again  you  would 
have  transcended  the  problem.     In  anecdotes  and  ad- 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  EVENTS  169 

venture  stories,  which  seldom  involve  much  character 
drawing,  it  is  not  surpassingly  difficult  to  do  this,  inas- 
much as  a  mere  name  and  a  phrase  will  there  tell  enough 
about  the  people.  The  opening  event  of  Daudet's 
The  Little  Pies  integrates  almost  perfectly  the  three 
factors,  character,  setting,  and  complication: 

That  morning,  which  was  a  Sunday,  Bureau,  the  pastry 
cook  on  Rue  Turenne,  called  his  apprentice  and  said  to 
him: 

^'Here  are  Monsieur  Bonnicar^s  little  pies;  go  take  them 
to  him  and  come  back  at  once.  It  seems  that  the  Ver- 
saillais  have  entered  Paris." 

In  these  three  short  sentences  Daudet  marshals  almost 
everything  which  is  going  to  count  in  the  ensuing  dramatic 
movement.  There  is  only  one  slight  omission.  The  pas- 
try cook  should  have  warned  tlie  lad  not  to  dally,  because 
M.  Bonnicar  was  a  very  particular  and  fidgety  old  epicure. 
This  would  have  introduced  accurately,  albeit  indirectly, 
the  one  other  important  personage.  As  the  opening 
stands,  you  have  no  hint  that  Bonnicar  himself  is  going  to 
figure  in  the  affair;  much  less  that  his  gastronomical 
habits  will.  Nevertheless,  it  is  a  wonderfully  skilful 
piece  of  integration. 

2.  This  is  the  most  frequently  violated  rule  of  order. 
And  the  violation  is  due  largely  to  false  teaching.  Two 
doctrines  have  been  advanced  by  writers  on  narrative 
technique:  one  is  that  all  inevitable  description  must  be 
bunched  as  near  the  opening  as  possible;  the  other  is 
that  the  story  must  begin  with  action  and  scatter  its 
descriptions  where  they  will  least  clog  the  movement 
of  the  plot.  The  first  doctrine  is  based  upon  the  as- 
sumption that  the  speed  of  the  narrative  should  increase 
steadily  to  the  end,  and  that  hence  the  slowest  material, 
which  is,  of  course,  the  more  descriptive,  must  come 
first.    The  second  doctrine  grows  out  of  the  hypothesis 


170  SHORT   STORY   WRITING 

that  the  short  story  should  be  pure  dramatic  narrative 
throughout,  and  therefore  disencumbered  of  all  exclu- 
sively descriptive  passages. 

Unfortunately,  both  suppositions  are  false;  uniform 
acceleration  of  action  is  not  an  ideal  at  all,  and  pure 
dramatic  narrative  is  not  an  exclusive  ideal.  The  short 
story  has  two  ideals,  both  playing  incessantly  upon 
every  manipulation  of  its  material.  The  correct  principle 
of  arrangement  reckons  equally  with  both  of  these  ideals, 
and  it  consequently  bids  us  to  employ  descriptive  events 
at  those  points  where  description  best  intensifies  both  the  single 
effect  and  the  action;  or,  if  impossibly  both,  then  thai  one 
which  stands  in  greater  need  of  intensification. 
^(  Now,  froipa  this  may  be  deduced  several  special  prac- 
tices the  most  important  of  which  are  the  following: 

a.  The  more  completely  the  plot  action  and  the  single 
effect  grow  out  of  a  single  setting,  a  single  character  trait, 
and  a  single  generating  circumstance,  the  more  completely 
should  the  descriptive  events  be  moused  in  the  opening. 

b.  The  more  completely  the  plot  action  and  the  single 
effect  grow  out  of  some  one  factor  (such  as  the  setting,  or  the 
character  trait,  or  the  complication),  the  more  completely 
should  the  descriptive  events  mass  around  the  first  develop- 
ment of  that  factor. 

These  two  rules  hold  not  only  for  character  stories  but 
for  all  other  types^X  To  perceive  this,  consider  three 
stories  which  dilf er  as  widely  as  possible  from  one  another : 
A  Coward,  Ligeia,  and  O.  Henry's  skit,  Calloway^s  Code. 
The  first  is  the  purest  character  drama;  the  second  is  that 
rarest  of  all,  the  three-phase  story;  and  the  third  is  the 
lightest  sort  of  complication.  I  choose  these,  because  the 
test  of  a  rule  is  in  extreme  instances. 

In  the  first  everything  grows  out  of  the  viscount's 
single  trait,  a  single  custom  of  French  society,  and  a 
single    encounter;    hence    every    line    of    description    is 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  EVENTS  171 

packed  into  the  first  three  paragraphs.  And  why? 
Because,  first  of  all,  this  description  must  precede  all 
the  action,  in  order  to  make  the  latter  intelligible;  and, 
secondly,  because  no  other  description  is  needed,  inasmuch 
as  the  single  effect  is  here  identical  with  the  dramatic 
action. 

In  Ligeia  Poe  aims  at  integrating  setting,  character, 
and  complication;  and  the  single  effect,  which  is  the 
emotion  aroused  by  the  thought  of  a  human  will  triumph- 
ing over  death,  even  through  another's  body,  is  produced 
equally  throughout  all  three  factors.  You  feel  it  in 
the  person  of  Ligeia,  and  in  the  death  chamber,  and  in  the 
grewsome  complications.  Every  touch  and  turn  keeps 
you  thinking  vaguely  that  stupendous,  mysterious  powers 
are  at  work  in  the  invisible  environment.  Now,  unlike  A 
Coward,  Ligeia  has  several  generating  circumstances  and 
several  complications,  all  of  which  the  reader  will  easily 
find  for  himself.  It  is  therefore  an  extreme  negative  in- 
stance under  rule  (b).  Its  plot  and  action  and  single  effect 
do  not  grow  out  of  one  factor,  nor  are  the  factors  out  of 
which  they  grow  simple;  therefore,  if  our  rule  is  sound 
the  descriptive  events  will  not  mass  around  one  factor 
or  one  event,  but  will  be  distributed  around  many.  This, 
of  course,  is  precisely  what  we  find.  The  story  is  the 
despair  of  the  dramatic  formalists  who  preach  the  Mau- 
passant pattern.  More  than  2,000  words  at  the  very 
outset — nearly  as  many  as  in  A  Coward — describe 
minutely  the  beauty  and  learning  and  character  of 
Ligeia.  Between  the  first  movement,  which  ends  with  the 
marriage  of  Rowena,  and  the  second,  which  begins  with 
her  husband's  first  outbursts  of  hatred  toward  her,  there 
are  interpolated  over  six  hundred  words  sketching  the 
bridal  chamber  in  the  gloomy  dwelling.  Finally,  through- 
out the  third  movement,  the  picturing  is  steady  and  rich, 
even  up  to  the  denouement. 


172  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

Calloway^s  Code  tells  us  how  a  cub  reporter  deciphered 
a  mysterious  cable  dispatch  which  the  newspaper's 
special  correspondent  in  the  Russo-Japanese  war  smug- 
gled past  the  press  censor.  The  whole  interest  centres 
upon  the  cipher  and  the  youngster  who  discovered  it. 
Hence  it  is  that  the  only  description  in  the  entire  story 
is  of  Vesey,  the  cub,  at  the  moment  when  he  walks  in, 
peruses  the  message  which  has  baffled  everybody  else, 
and  solves  it;  and  of  the  veteran  who  padded  the  report 
for  scare-head  purposes.  Unquestionably,  this  second 
touch  is  irrelevant;  but  it  is  very  brief  and  inoffensive. 

In  conclusion,  the  gist  of  the  second  rule  of  order  is  this: 
usually  some  special  quality  of  the  single  effect  or  the 
dramatic  action  fixes  the  order  of  the  more  important 
descriptive  events  and  pure  descriptions;  and  when  it 
does  not  clearly  do  so,  the  latter  properly  come  as  early  in 
the  story  as  possible. 

3.  The  rule  of  transitions  is  so  familiar  and  lucid  that 
discussion  is  not  called  for.  Perhaps  it  should  be  noticed 
in  passing,  though,  that  many  plots  pass  abruptly  from 
movement  to  movement,  by  the  very  nature  of  their 
events  and  their  direction.  The  student  must  therefore 
be  on  his  guard  against  a  false  ideal.  He  must  not  strive 
to  make  the  action  continuous,  unless  he  has  assured  him- 
self that  it  is  not  intrinsically  broken.  Often  the  breaks 
will  be  so  sharp  that,  in  mere  honesty  to  the  public, 
they  should  be  typographically  symbolized.  I  know, 
some  critics  consider  a  line  of  asterisks  in  the  middle  of  a 
tale  most  uncanonical;  but  so  much  the  worse  for  critics 
and  canons.  They  are  trying  the  impossible,  in  imposing 
an  external  form  upon  an  art  which  takes  its  shape  only 
from  ideals  and  ideas.  Maupassant's  The  Necklace  has 
four  visible  breaks,  and  yet  even  the  formalists  concede  its 
flawlessness.  A  Coward  has  two  breaks;  The  Horla,  with 
its  diary  form,  has  half  a  hundred;  The  Elixir  of  Father 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  EVENTS  173 

Gaucher  has  six, — and,  were  a  chronicler  so  minded,  he 
might  array  a  ghttering  host  of  splendid  works  against  the 
error,  drawing  them  from  almost  every  master  of  fiction. 

4.  The  superiority  of  the  natural  order  of  events  ought 
to  be  apparent,  but  to  many  it  is  not.  Young  writers 
commonly  suppose  that  historical  inversion  is  an  unfailing 
virtue;  that  it  whets  the  reader's  curiosity,  puzzles  him, 
and  thus  heightens  the  effect  of  the  story.  The  result 
of  this  belief  is  a  flood  of  stories  that  aren't  stories;  that 
is,  much  writing  about  undramatic,  intrinsically  dull 
happenings.  The  momentary  illusion  of  story  stuff  is 
produced  by  twisting  things  or  by  standing  them  on  their 
heads.  One  might  count  so-called  detective  and  mystery 
tales  by  the  score  which  ape  the  real  kind  by  just  such 
operations.  They  attempt  it  because  the  real  kind  almost 
always  inverts  events;  and  the  aping  authors  fancy  that, 
by  copying  the  form,  they  may  seize  the  substance. 
This  peculiarity  of  the  cheap  mystery  and  detective  story 
we  have  already  dwelt  upon.^ 

Ninety-nine  times  out  of  a  hundred,  a  plot  that  is  very 
weak  when  narrated  in  its  natural  order  is  not  worth 
pottering  over.  And,  if  strong  in  that  order,  its  strength 
is  seldom  increased  by  inversion.  The  rare  exception  is 
usually  of  the  second  kind  above  mentioned;  it  is  a 
story  of  misunderstanding.  In  such  a  story,  the  domi- 
nant character  sometimes  does  what  he  does  because  he 
supposes  that  something  happened  at  a  certain  time;  when, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  happened  before  or  after  that  time 
and  under  circumstances  which  give  it  a  meaning  unsus- 
pected by  the  hero.  In  such  a  case,  the  story  must  be 
told  partly  from  the  hero's  point  of  view,  in  order  that  we 
may  sympathetically  understand  his  behavior. 

iCf.  160  etc. 


174  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 


SUB-CHAPTER    D. — THE    POINT    OF    VIEW 


k 


1.  The  confusion  on  this  subject.  This  is  the  most 
neglected  of  all  technical  questions,  and  the  most  confused. 
The  strangest  medley  of  conflicting  and  vague  opinions  on 
the  subject  fills  the  text-books.  At  one  extreme,  we  hear 
that  'the  best  method  of  narration,  the  simplest  and  most 
natural,  is  to  tell  the  story  in  the  third  person,  as  if 
you  were  a  passive  observer.'  ^  And  at  the  other  ex- 
treme: 'Any  way  is  good,  if  it  is  artistic;  but  some  ways 
are  harder  than  others.'  ^  Now,  the  former  extreme  is 
false  in  every  adjective;  the  third  person  is  neither  the 
best  nor  the  simplest  nor  the  most  natural  point  of  view, 
as  will  shortly  be  proved.  And,  as  for  the  second  ex- 
treme, it  is  an  empty  phrase.  It  means  nothing  to  say 
that  any  way  is  good,  if  artistic;  for  'good'  means  'artistic' 
here,  so  that  the  assertion  comes  to  this :  any  artistic 
way  is  artistic,  and  any  good  way  is  good.  Of  course, 
what  the  critic  is  trying  to  say  is  that  the  point  of  view 
depends  upon  the  writer's  personal  taste  and  skill.  But 
this  is  demonstrably  false,  at  least  in  most  instances. 
Truth  is,  the  point  of  view  is  inextricably  bound  up  with 
the  specific  material  and  the  desired  single  effect  of  each 
particular  story,  and  hence  only  an  analysis  of  these 
latter  will  throw  light  upon  the  angle  from  which  the 
story  is  to  be  told. 

2.  Two  meanings  of  'point  of  view.'  Though  the  risk 
of  confusion  is  slight,  it  is  well  to  distinguish  at  once  two 
senses  in  which  one  may  speak  of  a  point  of  view.  People 
say  that  Thomas  Hardy's  point  of  view  is  artificial,  Haw- 
thorne's  ultra-puritanical,   and   Maupassant's  cynically 

1  Barrett,  131. 
^Esenwein,  109. 


IHE  POINT  OF  VIEW  175 

pessimistic.  And  they  mean  that  what  Hardy  himself 
sees  and  depicts  is  imreal,  what  Hawthorne  observes  is  a 
world  mercilessly  dominated  by  a  cruel  monster  called 
Virtue;  and  what  Maupassant  notes  is  that  man  belongs 
to  the  animal  kingdom.  Now  all  this,  of  course,  is  not 
what  we  refer  to  when  we  say  that  A  Coward  is  narrated 
from  an  objective  point  of  view.  It  is  the  angle  of  narra- 
tion which  we  are  here  thinking  of,  and  not  the  effect  of 
the  things  which  the  author  depicts.  The  difference,  as 
well  as  the  relation,  between  these  points  of  view  is  pre- 
cisely that  which  we  find  in  painting;  and  as  the  latter  is 
much  more  visible  and  simple,  it  may  well  serve  as  a 
leading  string  into  a  sharper  comprehension  of  the  other. 
Corot  loved  the  blues  and  grays  of  springtime  dawns 
and  rain-washed  glades.  Only  where  he  found  these 
colors  in  all  their  freshness  was  he  wont  to  stand  his 
easel.  Now,  in  our  fancy,  let  us  follow  him  some  soft 
morning  until  he  comes  upon  a  dip  in  the  land  framed 
with  young  poplars  and  cherishing  the  last  wraiths  of 
night  mist.  The  sight  halts  him,  and  he  drops  his  kit 
on  the  wet  grass.  In  this  act  he  expresses  the  first  point 
of  view.  He  is  doing  what  Hardy,  Hawthorne,  and 
Maupassant  do;  he  selects  from  the  world  those  things 
toward  which  he  is  acutely  sensitive.  Seeing  tliem  as  other 
men  do  not,  he  strips  them  of  all  those  many  entangling 
qualities  which  obscure  them  and  reports  them  as  they 
are  'in  themselves.'  But  does  he  place  his  easel  wherever 
he  happens  first  to  perceive  the  view?  Hardly.  He 
saunters  around  the  dale,  goes  a  way  into  it,  then  with- 
draws to  a  considerable  distance,  climbs  a  nearby  hill 
and  perhaps  watches  through  all  the  morning  hours. 
He  is  hunting  for  the  one  best  perspective.  He  knows 
that  the  poplars  and  the  tilt  of  the  land,  and  the  angle 
of  light  and  the  mi^t  and  everything  else  combine  in  an 
infinite  variety  of  ways,  according  to  the  vantage  of  the 


\/ 


176  SHORT  STORY   WRITING 

observer;  and  that  some  few  of  these  combinations 
bring  out  the  pure  values  of  the  much-sought  blues  and 
grays  much  more  faithfully  than  all  the  others.  In 
seeking  one  of  them,  the  artist  is  doing  the  very  same 
thing  that  Maupassant  does  when  he  tells  the  story  of 
the  Horla  as  the  victim  of  the  monster  experiences  it;  and 
the  same  thing  that  Hawthorne  does  when  he  narrates 
The  Birthmark  as  he  himself  senses  the  episodes. 

The  difference  between  the  two  points  of  view  is  pro- 
found, and  yet  they  are  intimately  related,  as  different 
things  often  are. 

The  first  point  of  view  expresses  the  artisfs  sensitivity, 
wish  or  belief  toward  a  s^ibject.  The  second  point  of  view 
expresses  the  arrangement  of  some  particular  material 
which  makes  conspicuous  some  quality  of  the  latter  which 
the  artist  wishes  to  report.^  This  quality  may  or  may  not 
happen  to  be  one  of  those  chosen  by  the  artist  for  expression. 
It  may  merely  serve  to  express  something  else. 

For  clarity,  then,  we  must  give  names  to  each.  The 
first  I  shall  call  the  artist's  attitude,  and  the  second  the 
angle  of  narration.  Concerning  the  former  something 
will  be  said  in  sections  5  and  6  below.  We  now  turn  to  the 
angle  of  narration. 

3.  The  angle  of  narration.  There  are  three  typical 
angles  of  narration: 

a.  The  pure  objective. 

b.  The  angle  of  the  inactive  witness  or  hearer. 

c.  The  angle  of  a  participant. 

i.,  A  subordinate  character. 

ii.  A  dominant  character. 
a.  The  objective.  This  might  be  called  the  photog- 
rapher's point  of  view,  did  not  the  epithet  suggest 
mechanical  accuracy  and  inartistic  realism.  The  truth 
of  the  metaphor,  however,  is  illuminating.  In  the  first 
place,   like   the   working   of   a   camera  plate,   objective 


THE  POINT  OF  VIEW  177 

narrative  seems  wholly  impersonal;  and,  secondly,  the 
narrator  stands  at  a  distance  from  the  events  he  records, 
no  less  than  the  photographer  does.  These  are  the  sure 
marks  of  the  angle,  and  there  is  no  other.) 

Few  stories  have  been  told  in  this  manner  from  start 
to  finish,  though  a  host  are  predominantly.  Maupassant's 
The  Piece  of  String  and  The  Necklace  nowhere  reveal  the 
events  or  characters  as  they  might  have  appeared  to  some 
eye-witness  or  active  participant  in  the  action.  The 
feelings,  thoughts,  and  deeds  of  Maitre  Hauchecome  and 
the  Loisels  are  chronicled  as  a  physician  on  a  filing  card 
might  record  the  temperature,  pulse  and  dehrium  of  a 
fever  patient.  Indeed,  the  ending  of  The  Piece  of  String 
might  well  be  an  excerpt  from  a  hospital  report: 

He  gnawed  his  nails,  and  exhausted  himself  in  vain 
efforts. 

He  grew  perceptibly  thinner. 

Now  the  jokers  asked  him  to  tell  the  story  of  The 
Piece  of  String  for  their  amusement,  as  a  soldier  who  has 
seen  service  is  asked  to  tell  about  his  battles.  His 
mind,  attacked  at  its  source,  grew  feebler. 

Late  in  December  he  took  to  his  bed. 

In  the  first  days  of  January  he  died,  and  in  the  delirium 
of  the  death  agony  he  protested  his  innocence,  repeating: 

^'A  little  piece  of  string — a  little  piece  of  string — see, 
here  it  is,  m'sieu'  mayor." 

In  all  this  you  are  not  aware  of  the  onlookers,  nor  do  you 
see  the  tragedy  through  Hauchecorne's  eyes.  You  get 
only  the  bald  facts,  and  they  speak  for  themselves. 
JThdr  intrinsic  and  immediate  'power  is  the  measure  of  the 
appropriateness  of  the  objective  angle  of  narration.  This 
is  the  almost  invariable  rule.  The  more  obvious  and  the 
more  intense  a  story's  events  are,  the  more  natural  and 
successful  the  objective  treatment  will  prove  (if  it  can  be 
employed  at  all).  This  becomes  almost  self-evident,  once 
you  scrutinize  an  instance.    A  plot  whose  every  develop- 


178  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

ment  is  as  clear  as  day  certainly  calls  for  no  interpretation, 
no  posing,  in  order  to  sharpen  it.  And  if  its  single  effect 
is  intense,  what  need  is  there  of  adding  somebody's 
feelings  and  thoughts  toward  it?  The  story  tells 
itself. 

It  is  not  strange,  then,  that  the  best  authors  have  seldom 
chosen  the  objective  treatment  without  recourse  to  some 
other  perspective  in  conjunction  with  it.  This  casts  no 
reflection  upon  their  technical  skill;  it  only  means  that 
they  do  not  conjure  up  or  at  least  dislike  to  write  about 
the  obvious  and  the  terrific.  They  are  more  interested 
in  complications  and  aspects  of  human  nature  which  call 
for  diagnosis.  Such  affairs,  not  being  self-evident,  must 
be  put  in  their  true  light;  they  must  be  shown  up  by  some- 
body who  perceives  them  from  the  one  angle  which  most 
effectively  reveals  their  bearings. 

A  story  told  objectively  throughout  develops  a  speed 
and  a  directness  rarely  attained  in  any  other  way.  It 
has  no  philosophical  overture,  no  interpolations  by  the 
narrator,  and  very  few  elaborate  descriptive  passages. 
It  also  tends  to  employ  only  those  events  whose  full 
significance  is  visible  or  audible  to  any  witness.  Hence 
it  portrays  no  more  of  an  emotion  or  a  thought  than 
straightway  manifests  itself  unequivocally  in  outward  ac- 
tion. For  just  so  would  a  reporter  write  who  had  no 
inner,  secret  knowledge  of  what  was  passing  in  the 
characters'  minds. 

The  limitations  of  the  objective  treatment  now  appear. 
The  consequences  of  fortune  or  misfortune  upon  a  fixed 
human  type  it  can  present  with  matchless  brilliancy.  And 
the  instinctive  behavior  of  a  fixed  human  type  it  can  also 
render  well.  But  it  cannot  depict  the  great  crises  of 
character.  The  invisible  forces  of  life  which  do  battle 
against  one  another  in  the  mind  of  one  who  stands  at 
a  crossroads,  the  countering  of  impulse  with  impulse, 


THE   POINT  OF  VIEW  179 

the  still  reasoning  against  vain  pride  or  empty  panic, 
the  trembling  anticipations,  and  the  sting  of  memories — 
all  these  lie  beyond  its  power. 

Once  more,  for  corroboration,  turn  to  Maupassant. 
Beyond  dispute  he  is  the  master  of  masters  in  the  realm 
of  the  dramatic  story;  also  he  champions  the  objective 
treatment  with  unreasonable  pertinacity.  He  and  all 
his  disciples  extol  the  impersonal  manner  above  every 
other.  And  yet  the  master  himself  forsakes  it,  every 
time  he  dips  into  psychological  analysis.  Look  once 
more  to  A  Coward,  and  you  will  find  many  passages  like 
these: 

A  single  thought  hovered  over  his  mind — 'a  duel' — 
without  arousing  any  emotion  whatsoever.  He  had 
done  what  he  should  have  done;  he  had  shown  himself  to 
be  what  he  ought  to  be. 

He  examined  these  assembled  letters,  which  seemed  to 
him  mysterious,  full  of  vague  meaning.  Georges  Lamil! 
Who  was  this  man?  What  was  his  business?  Why  had  he 
stared  at  that  lady  in  such  a  way?  Was  it  not  disgusting 
that  a  stranger,  an  unknown,  should  cause  such  a  change 
in  one's  life  .  .  .  ?  No,  of  course  he  was  not 
afraid,  as  he  had  determined  to  carry  the  thing  through, 
as  his  mind  was  fully  made  up  to  fight,  and  not  to  tremble. 

Is  it  the  narrator  who  says  the  viscount  has  done  what 
he  should  have  done?  No,  that  is  the  viscoimt's  own 
interpretation.  Does  Maupassant  call  it  disgusting  that 
a  stranger  should  upset  another's  life?  No  again.  The 
coward  so  construes  the  affair.  And,  what  is  still  more 
to  the  point,  these  are  thoughts  which  no  objective  nar- 
rator could  observe  or  even  infer,  inasmuch  as  they  find 
no  expression  in  the  viscount's  outward  acts. 

Maupassant  wisely  sacrificed  his  theory  for  art's 
sake;  he  shifts  here  back  and  forth  from  impersonal 
narrative  to  the  viscount's  point  of  view,  to  meet  the 
demands  now  of  visible  drama  and  now  of  the  inner 


180  SHORT  STORY   WRITING 

conflict.  And  so  too  does  every  skilled  writer  of  psy- 
chological stories. 

)/The  objective  treatment  also  is  ill  suited  to  the  at- 
mosphere story,  though  not  incompatible  with  it.  Un- 
like other  types,  the  atmosphere  story  demands  a  certain 
wealth  and  delicacy'  of  descriptive  detail,  inasmuch  as  it 
secures  its  strongest  effect  in  a  unified  sensuous  impression. 
Now,  whether  we  are  sharply  aware  of  it  or  not,  there 
is  in  us  a  natural  tendency  to  associate  such  an  impression 
with  a  person  who  is  impressed;  for  the  emotions  that  are 
woven  into  every  well  wrought  description  of  places  or 
people  ar3  thoroughly  human,  which  is  to  say  highly 
individual.  Only  one  man  in  the  world  could  experience 
that  particular  and  unique  blend  of  colors  and  flitting 
shadows  and  portentous  little  noises  which  filled  the  shop 
after  Markheim  slew  the  dealer.  Only  one  man  in  the 
world  could  see  and  feel  what  Ligeia's  husband  did  in  his 
will-haunted  bridal  chamber.  And  so  it  fits  in  best  with 
our  long  habituated  expectations  to  let  the  report  of 
such  opulent  sceneries  come  from  a  character  in  the  story 
or,  less  appropriately,  from  an  inactive  witness.  I  cannot 
recall  any  famous  atmosphere  story  which  has  been 
objectively  told.  And  again  let  me  cite  the  high  priest 
of  the  objectivistic  cult:  in  Moonlight  Maupassant  nar- 
rates the  atmospheric  movement  (just  before  the  de- 
nouement) from  the  Abbe  Marignan's  point  of 
view. 

b.  The  angle  of  the  inactive  witness  or  hearer.  This 
treatment  is  that  which  commonly  yields  an  opening  like 
that  of  Turgenieff's  The  Jew: 

"Pray  tell  us  a  story.  Colonel,"  we  said  at  last  to 
Nikolai  Hitch.     The  Colonel  smiled,  emitted  a  stream  of 
tobacco  smoke  through  his  moustache,  passed  his  hand 
over  his  gray  hair,  stared  at  us,  and  meditated. 
"Well  then,  listen,"  he  began. 


THE   POINT  OF  VIEW  181 

"It  happened  in  the  year  '13,  before  Dantzig.  I  was 
then,"  etc.,  etc. 

In  contrast  to  the  highly  artificial,  sophisticated  objec- 
tive treatment,  this  one  is  naive  and  instinctive.  In  a 
state  of  nature  no  man  who  has  lived  through  an  ad- 
venture, waking  or  dreaming,  detaches  himself  from  it  in 
the  telling.  He  says:  *I  saw  the  man  strike  down  his 
wife,  and  I  heard  her  cry  as  she  fell.  I  tell  you!  I  went 
faint  at  the  sight!'  As  literature  has  grown  out  of  just 
such  spoken  narrative,  it  has  inevitably  brought  over  into 
the  more  deliberate  printed  form  this  habit. 

Bjedhg  natural,  the  treatment  is  supposed  to  lend  an 
air  of  reality  to  the  narrative;  and  doubtless  it  does  so 
when  you  know  and  trust  the  narrator,  or  when  you  have 
some  other  reason  to  suppose  that  the  report  is  a  matter  of 
fact.  A  newspaper  account  of,  say,  a  fire  is  likely  to  be 
more  convincing,  if  it  quotes  an  eye-witness  at  length;  but 
it  is,  only  because  it  purports  to  be  true  anyhow.  Once 
forsake  this  intention,  though,  and  the  device  loses  all 
force.  Thus  it  happens  in  literature.  A  novel  or  a  story 
does  not  pretend  to  give  straight  facts,  and  only  very 
young  children  fancy  that  it  does.  Fiction  is  fiction,  and 
need  not  bolster  itself  with  pretenses.  If,  then,  the  writer 
is  to  tell  his  story  from  the  angle  of  the  inactive  witness  or 
hearer,  he  must  do  so,  not  for  the  sake  of  creating  the 
illusion  of  reality,  but  only  in  order  to  bring  out  the  gen- 
uine story  values,  namely  the  dramatic  action  or  the  single 
effect.  Now,  under  what  circumstances  are  these  height- 
ened or  clarified  thereby?  There  are  four  conspicuous 
cases. 

i.  The  surest  case  is  that  in  which  the  narrator's 
mannerisms  are  an  integral  part  of  the  single  effect. 
Joel  Chandler  Harris'  Uncle  Remus  Stories  illustrate  this 
perfectly  (though  most  of  them  are  not  genuine  short 
stories).     Half  the  charm  of  his  queer  tales  from  folk-lore 


182  SHORT  STORY   WRITING 

resides  in  old  Uncle  Remus,  his  dialect,  and  his  quaint 
asides.  So  too  with  Kipling's  Mulvaney  stories,  though  in 
less  degree;  and,  were  Mulvaney  wholly  inactive  in  them, 
they  would  be  a  more  pertinent  instance  for  us. 

ii.  A  second  case  is  detective  and  mystery  stories.  One 
of  the  method's  gravest  defects  here  becomes  a  virtue.  The 
defect  is  its  tendency  to  break  up  the  main  action,  either 
by  shifting  the  point  of  view  back  and  forth  between 
that  of  a  character  and  that  of  the  narrator,  or  else  by 
cluttering  the  pages  with  the  narrator's  explanations  and 
personal  interpolations.  Insufferable  as  all  this  is  in  most 
stories,  it  serves  the  mystery-monger  well.  It  confuses 
and  distracts  the  reader  by  shunting  his  attention  fre- 
quently from  the  plot  events  to  the  thoughts  of  the 
narrator.  Thus  the  connection  between  events  is  ob- 
scured, and  they  become  more  of  a  mystery  than  if  they 
were  given  bald  and  direct, — which  is  precisely  what  the 
writer  desires.  We  have  already  discussed  this  matter 
under  the  head  of  indirect  plot  action;  but  it  is  well  to 
consider  again  the  famous  stories  which  exemplify  the 
above  principle.  In  Ligeia,  which,  though  vastly  more 
than  a  mystery  story,  is  overhung  with  mystery,  the 
narrator  is  almost  an  inactive  witness  of  the  events. 
The  Gold  Bug  is  narrated  by  Legrand's  friend,  who 
plays  such  a  trifling  part  in  the  plot  action  that  we 
scarcely  have  the  right  to  esteem  him  a  character.  The 
Purloined  Letter  is  told  by  Dupin's  acquaintance,  who  is 
an  absolute  zero  in  the  tale.  Conan  Doyle  brings  in 
the  passive  Dr.  Watson  to  twist  and  obfuscate  the  prob- 
lems of  crime  which  Sherlock  Holmes  confronts.  William 
J.  Locke,  too,  lets  himself  narrate  many  of  the  Joyous 
Adventures  of  Aristide  Pujol  The  list  might  be  lengthened 
indefinitely,  with  some  of  E.  W.  Hornung's  Witching  Hill 
Stories  well  toward  the  bottom  of  it. 

Unfortunately,  this  method  is  too  easy;  for  the  inactive 


THE  POINT  OF  VIEW  183 

narrator  may  jumble  up  the  circumstances  of  the  story 
so  that  all  the  great  detectives  in  Christendom  could  not 
unravel  it  on  his  evidence  alone.  Realizing  this,  many 
good  writers  are  tempted  to  fall  back  upon  it,  just  to 
spare  themselves  the  hard  work  of  making  the  complica- 
tions themselves  mysterious.  Probably  half  the  stories 
so  told  could  be  handled  otherwise,  and  to  great  advantage. 
How  simple  it  would  have  been  for  G.  K.  Chesterton  to 
have  cast  his  Father  Brown  stories  in  that  mould!  And 
how  refreshing  to  find  them  in  another.  How  easy  for 
Henry  Sydnor  Harrison  to  have  put  his  story  of  Mrs. 
Hindi  ^  into  the  mouth  of  a  wayfarer  who  overheard  these 
amazing  women  in  the  Subway  and  followed  them  curi- 
ously! And  what  a  wonderful  thriller  he  has  produced  by 
not  doing  that! 

iii.  A  third  instance  of  the  method's  utility  is  that  of  the 
story  in  which  the  dramatic  quality  of  the  plot  can  be 
brought  out  only  by  an  impartial  interpretation  of  the 
characters.  The  objective  treatment  will  not  suffice 
here  inasmuch  as  it  does  not  interpret;  and  the  point  of 
view  of  an  active  character  will  fail  because,  if  consistent 
and  true,  it  will  not  be  fair  to  the  other  characters. 
There  remains  then  only  the  method  we  are  now  consid- 
ering. 

A  flawless  specimen  of  this  type  is  James  Hopper's 
Memories  in  Men^s  Souls,  which  the  student  is  advised 
to  study  closely.  Its  theme  does  not  appear  directly  in 
the  plot  incidents;  it  is  a  thought  which  the  romance 
awakens  in  the  narrator.  Hence,  if  the  story  were  told 
objectively,  we  should  get  the  romance,  but  not  its 
import;  and  it  is  this  import  which  contributes  heavily 
to  the  single  effect.  On  the  other  hand,  were  the  romance 
told  as  it  was  seen  by  the  business  man  or  his  sweetheart 
or  her  malevolent  uncle,  it  would  cease  to  be  romance. 

^McCZwre's,  Sept.,  1911 


184  SHORT   STORY  WRITING 

To  the  first  two  it  was  a  sickening  catastrophe  from  start 
to  finish;  and  from  the  uncle's  point  of  \iew,  only  the 
first  brief  movement  could  have  been  told  at  all,  for  he 
did  not  witness  nor  hear  of  the  climax.  Half  the  power 
of  this  exquisite  narrative  springs  from  the  delicate 
veiling  of  the  lovers'  feelings  at  the  climax.  They  are 
not  suppressed — on  the  contrary,  they  are  as  clear  as 
day.  They  are  revealed  by  the  narrator's  personal 
conjectures  as  to  what  they  must  have  been;  and  as  he 
conjectures,  he  recalls  the  manner  of  the  hero  when  the 
latter  laid  bare  to  him  the  whole  adventure.  No  other 
device  could  vie  with  this  here. 

iv.  The  fourth  and  last  story  type  admitting  of  this 
treatment  is  the  atmosphere  story.  As  we  have  seen,  de- 
scriptive events  integrate  best  when  frankly  narrated 
from  the  point  of  view  of  somebody  who  witnesses  the 
places  and  people  described.  The  inactive  witness  or 
hearer  may  be  that  somebody,  whenever  the  atmosphere 
does  not  figure  so  intimately  in  the  plot  action  that  its 
part  cannot  be  understood  save  from  an  active  character's 
point  of  view.  For  instance,  the  atmospheric  effect  in 
A  Descent  into  the  Maelstrom  is  not  a  dynamic  factor  in  the 
adventure.  That  is  to  say,  the  fisherman  was  not  sucked 
into  the  vortex  by  the  hypnotic  power  of  its  appearance; 
nor  is  his  behavior  in  any  other  way  influenced  by  the 
color  of  the  insane  waters,  or  their  roar,  or  the  horrible 
shape  of  the  gigantic  funnel.  Not  these  sensuous  qualities 
but  the  thought  of  the  consequences  of  his  position 
finally  brought  him  to  that  calm,  almost  disinterested 
contemplative  reflection  which  lies  beyond  fear  and  which 
delivered  him  from  the  peril.  Hence  the  atmosphere 
is  painted  largely  by  the  fisherman's  visitor.  In  Mark- 
heim,  on  the  contrary,  the  ticking  of  the  clocks  in  the 
shop  and  the  patter  of  rain  on  the  attic  roof  and  the  scurry- 
ing shuffle  of  wayfarers'  feet  outside  are  not  mere  scenic 


THE  POINT  OF  VIEW  185 

trimmings.  They  lay  hold  of  the  murderer,  they  stir  up 
vague  fears  in  him,  they  prod  him  to  think  hard  over  his 
plight;  and,  of  these  thoughts  the  vision  is  born  on 
which  the  action  of  the  whole  story  hinges.  How  im- 
possible, then,  to  portray  the  fantastic  interior  save 
through  Markheim's  own  eyes  and  ears — and  conscience! 

c.  The  angle  of  a  participant.  In  choosing  the  point 
of  view  of  an  active  character,  the  writer  who  has  grasped 
the  principles  above  set  forth  will  readily  decide  whether 
he  ought  to  see  the  events  through  the  eyes  of  a  minor 
personage  or  in  the  dominant  character's  perspective. 
For,  once  it  is  clear  that  some  active  character  should 
be  chosen,  the  very  reasons  which  settle  that  will  also 
designate  the  particular  character  to  be  employed. 
Therefore  we  may  discuss  this  narrative  method  without 
regard  to  the  status  of  the  character  in  the  story. 

As  usual,  the  ultimate  criterion  is  the  double  ideal  of 
the  short  story.  The  aim  being  to  bring  out  both  the  dra- 
matic quality  and  the  single  effect,  is  it  not  self-evident 
that  an  active  character's  point  of  view  shall  be  chosen 
only  when  it  best  reveals  the  particular  swing  and  flavor  of 
the  plot?  And  all  we  have  to  ask  is :  when  and  where  does 
it  do  that?    We  find  two  cases. 

i.  First  and  most  conspicuously,  it  does  it  in  every  story 
which  aims  primarily  to  depict  the  actual  workings  of 
character  in  a  moral  crisis.  For  only  the  character  him- 
self can  know  and  feel  the  forces  at  work;  and  it  is  nothing 
but  that  interplay  of  forces  which  constitutes  the  story 
material.  Once  more,  Markheim  may  be  passed  out  as  a 
perfect  sample. 

ii.  The  second  type  calling  for  this  angle  is  the  complica- 
tion story  which  turns  upon  an  active  character's  ig- 
norance or  misunderstanding.  In  The  Tragic  Years, 
by  B.  Paul  Newman,^  the  main  action  is  thus  told,  because 

*  Everybody's,  May,  1910. 


186  SHORT  STORY   WRITING 

every  consequential  turn  in  it  happens  as  a  result  of  the 
lawyer's  being  ignorant  of  his  son's  nature.  In  that 
charming  piece  of  sentiment,  The  Poet  Who  Saved  His 
Youth,  by  Helen  Sterling  Thomas/  it  is  Peter's  ignorance 
about  the  one  fervent  admirer  of  his  verse  which  helps 
mightily  to  save  his  youth.  And  the  whole  point  of 
Old  Johnnie,  by  Barry  Benefield,^  turns  upon  Johnnie's 
mistaking  a  dressmaker's  dummy  for  a  live  and  wicked 
man.  Hence  again  the  participant's  point  of  view  is 
correctly  taken. 

4.  Angle  of  narration  and  grammatical  form.  In  the  lead- 
ing text-books  on  story  technique  the  angle  of  narration 
and  the  grammatical  form  of  narration  (that  is,  the  use  of 
the  first  or  the  third  person)  are  hopelessly  confused  and 
discussed  as  though  they  were  identical.  Esenwein  even 
goes  so  far  as  to  classify  the  angles  of  narration  as  varieties 
of  the  grammatical  form, — which  is  about  as  absurd  as  to 
classify  the  story  characters  with  respect  to  the  number 
of  syllables  in  their  names.  The  truth  is,  there  is  no 
significant  connection  whatever  between  the  perspective 
and  the  use  of  *I'  or  'he'.  And  the  absolute  proof  of 
this  is  given  in  the  fact  that  both  the  second  and  the  third 
angles  of  narration  may  he  correctly  indicated  in  either 
the  first  or  the  third  person.  For  instance,  suppose  that 
Jones'  valet  saw  Jones  kill  Smith,  and  that,  for  some 
dramatic  reason,  the  happenings  that  culminated  in  this 
tragedy  are  best  told  from  the  valet's  point  of  view.  Then 
the  narrative  may  run  thus: 

Yes,  I  was  Jones'  valet  when  he  killed  that  scoundrel, 
Smith.  A  mysterious  affair,  sir;  and  though  it's  ten 
years  gone,  I've  not  stopped  wondering  yet  why  my 
master  did  it,  etc.,  ad  lib. 

'McClure's,  July,  1910. 
^Scribner's,  Dec,  1911. 


THE  POINT  OF  VIEW  187 

Or  it  may  with  equal  accuracy  run  thus: 
As  he  laid  away  Jones'  shirts  in  the  mahogany  dresser, 
the  valet  let  his  eyes  wander  to  the  half -open  door  through 
which  the  sound  of  angry  voices  drifted.  Yes,  that  was 
Mr.  Smith  in  there,  swearing.  Why  had  he  been  coming 
so  often  of  late?  And  why  did  Mr.  Jones  rage  for  hours 
after  the  fellow  had  gone?  The  valet  shook  his  head 
.     etc.,  and  also  ad  lib. 

The  reader  may  perform  a  similar  experiment  with  the 
third  angle  V  And  he  may  do  so  even  with  the  purely 
objective  story  too,  which,  one  might  reasonably  suppose, 
could  be  narrated  only  in  the  third  person.  It  is  con- 
ceivable, for  instance,  that  a  witness  or  minor  participant 
in  an  episode  might  recount  the  latter  impersonally  and 
yet  speak  in  the  first  person.  He  might  say:  ''I  was 
standing  on  the  drug  store  steps  when  the  messenger  came 
up.  He  thrust  the  letter  into  my  hand  and  fell  exhausted 
.  .  .  "  Thisuseof 'I' is  quite  objective  and  impersonal; 
it  is  merely  a  way  of  naming  a  participant  in  the  story. 
It  does  not  bring  with  it  the  slightest  distortion  or  artificial 
arrangement  of  circumstances.  It  does  not  express  feeling 
or  opinion.  It  is  as  colorless  and  transparent  as  ^John 
Smxith'  or  'he*.  Cases  like  these  prove  that  it  cannot 
be  the  perspective  which  decides  the  grammatical  form. 
On  the  contrary,  the  latter  is  properly  determined  by  the 
material  of  the  particular  story,  even  as  the  perspective 
itself  is. 


188  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 


Exercises 


Find  the  angle  of  narration  which  will  best  bring  out 
the  seriousness  of  the  following  episode.  Find  the  angle 
that  shows  up  the  harshness  of  the  legal  technicality 
which  holds  a  poor  man  imder  such  circumstance.  Find 
the  angle  which  emphasizes  the  negro's  foolishness. 

Frank  Ayers,  a  negro  driver  of  the  Street  Cleaning  De- 
partment, wearing  his  uniform,  was  arraigned  in  the 
Men's  Night  Court  last  evening  on  a  charge  of  petty 
larceny,  and  declared  that  the  city's  delay  in  paying 
employes  had  driven  him  to  steal.  He  pleaded  guilty  to 
the  theft  of  a  bottle  of  catsup,  three  bottles  of  Oxford 
sauce,  one  box  of  herring,  a  jar  of  jelly,  and  a  package  of 
macaroni. 

His  wife  and  children  were  starving  and  he  had  also 
been  forced  to  go  without  food,  he  told  Magistrate  House, 
because  he  could  not  get  the  money  the  city  owed  him. 
His  story  so  impressed  Magistrate  House  that  he  asked 
the  complainant,  William  H.  Dillon,  a  store  detective, 
if  he  intended  to  press  the  charge. 

Magistrate  House  told  Ayers  he  felt  sorry  for  him, 
but  could  not  do  otherwise  than  hold  him  for  trial  in 
Special  Sessions. 

Street  Cleaning  Commissioner  Edwards  said  last  night 
that  there  had  been  a  delay  of  a  week  or  two  in  paying  the 
employes  of  his  department,  because  of  a  new  system  which 
required  the  approval  of  the  Civil  Service  Commission 
before  the  pay  rolls  go  to  the  Controller.  Commis- 
sioner Edwards  said  the  men  would  get  their  pay  in  a  day 
or  two. 

What  is  the  angle  of  narration  in  each  of  the  following? 
Is  the  angle  well  chosen?  Explain  your  answer  accu- 
rately. Is  the  artist's  attitude  discernible  at  all?  If  so, 
describe  it. 


EXERCISES  189 

1.  Hamlin,  Pauline  Worth — The  Gold  Pot.  {American j 
July,  1912.) 

2.  Child,  Richard  Washburn — The  Eyes  of  the  Gazelle. 
(Harper's,  April,  1912.) 

3.  Freeman,  Mary  Wilkins — The  Steeple.  (Hampton's, 
Oct.,  1911.) 

4.  Dudeney,  Mrs.  Henry — The  Secret  Shelf.  (Harper's, 
July,  1912.) 

In  Vol.  8  of  the  collection  entitled  Stories  by  American 
Authors  (Scribner's)  you  will  find  a  story  by  Elizabeth 
Stuart  Phelps  called  Zerviah  Hope,  which  is  hopelessly 
botched  because  the  author  has  not  duly  regarded  the 
angle  of  narration.  Find  what  this  angle  should  be  and 
rewrite  the  story  from  it,  taking  pains  not  to  modify  the 
incidents  and  character  traits. 


190  SHORT  STORY   WRITING 


5.  The  artisVs  attitude.  We  have  now  to  consider 
briefly  that  other  kind  of  point  of  view  which,  at  the  close 
of  section  2  above,  we  distinguished  from  the  angle  of  nar- 
ration. About  it  we  cannot  say  much,  for  it  and  its  prob- 
lems lie  far  beyond  the  province  of  this  book.  The  artist's 
attitude  is  not  a  matter  of  technique.  It  is  what  it  is,  and 
all  attempts  to  guide  it  by  formulas  are  futile.  I.  do  not 
mean  that  a  teacher  cannot  profoundly  influence  a  stu- 
dent's tastes  and  even  his  natural  manner  of  expression. 
He  certainly  can.  But  this  influence  cannot  be  charted, 
and  still  less  can  it  be  located  anywhere  in  the  materials  or 
the  methods  of  fiction.  It  works  through  discussions 
about  the  nature  of  things,  through  debates  over  ideals, 
through  study  of  rights  and  wrongs.  In  short,  it  is 
an  influence  of  culture;  and,  like  culture,  it  is  neither 
reading,  writing,  nor  arithmetic,  nor  any  other  body  of 
fact  or  technique.  It  is  the  directing  of  appetities,  likes 
and  dislikes,  sensitivities  and  prejudices. 

This  cultural  influence  may  be  insignificant  or  enormous, 
as  we  see  from  a  comparison  of  the  two  types  of  literary 
genius,  the  genius  from  within  and  the  genius  from  with- 
out. The  former,  of  whom  Poe  is  the  perfect  specimen, 
is  endowed  with  a  unique  fancy  and  a  preference  for  cer- 
tain thoughts  and  emotions  to  which  his  environment 
neither  adds  nor  takes  away  appreciably.  The  latter 
type,  which  is  best  exemplified  in  our  own  country  by 
Hawthorne,  likewise  possess  great  native  gifts;  but 
these,  under  the  influence  of  his  training  and  surround- 
ings, are  directed  toward  the  familiar  ideals  and  beliefs 
of  early  New  England.  How  far  one's  aptitudes  may 
thus  be  guided  depends  entirely  upon  the  individual 
and  the  themes  to  which  he  is  to  be  turned.  And,  as  his 
choice  of  themes  inevitably  precedes  his  writing  about 


THE  ARTIST'S  ATTITUDE  191 

them,  so  his  attitude  precedes  all  literary  manipulation. 

6.  The  artistes  attitude  and  his  style.  In  ordinary  discourse 
'style'  is  a  blanket  term  covering  at  least  three  things: 
(1)  the  qualities  of  a  narrative  which  are  determined  by 
the  theme  and  the  plot  action;  (2)  the  qualities  of  grammar 
and  language,  as  such;  and  (3)  the  qualities  which  express 
the  author's  attitude  toward  the  theme  or  plot  action. 
In  most  cases  these  three  may  be  distinguished  readilj' 
enough;  but  an  illustration  is  not  amiss.  Suppose  you 
are  writing  a  story  in  which,  at  a  critical  moment,  the 
heroine  dropped  her  eyes  demurely  under  the  gaze  of  a 
jealously  suspicious  admirer;  and  he,  misunderstand- 
ing her  act,  hurled  an  accusation  or  stalked  off  or  caught 
her  hand  or  did  something  else  which  complicated  affairs 
vitally.  If,  now,  you  write:  'The  girl  gazed  at  the  carpet, 
feigning  modesty' — the  mere  mention  of  the  act  would  be 
a  case  of  the  first  'style'.  If  you  write  'feigning  modesty', 
instead  of  the  neater  adverb,  'demurely',  this  is  the 
second  'style'.  And  if,  finally,  your  scorn  for  the  heroine 
runs  away  with  you,  and  you  let  it  speak  out  in  the 
sentence,  thus:  'The  sly-boots  gazed  at  the  carpet 
feigning  modesty' — then  you  are  exhibiting  'style' 
number  three,  provided  that  there  is,  in  the  plot  itself, 
no  dramatic  necessity  for  your  calling  the  girl  names. 

The  student  may  have  been  wondering  throughout 
this  book  why  it  does  not  preach  style  and  tell  how  to 
attain  it.     The  explanation  is  now  at  hand. 

Style,  in  the  first  sense,  is  the  result  of  mastering  story 
technique;  in  the  second  sense,  it  is  the  result  of  mastering 
grammar  and  rhetoric;  and,  in  the  third  sense,  it  is  the 
residt  of  the  artisfs  attitude  toward  his  material  and  all  that 
'pertains  to  it. 

Now,  this  book  is  devoted  to  the  problems  of  technique; 
hence,  what  of  style  derifes  from  the  manipulation  of 
dramatic  material  is  to  be  attained  only  by  becoming 


192  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

skilful  in  tKat  manipulation.  For,  to  repeat  with  another 
accent,  style  is  not  a  quality  in  the  material,  but  a  con- 
sequence of  handling  the  latter.  In  the  second  place, 
linguistic  style  lies  beyond  the  present  undertaking. 
The  pursuit  of  it  should  largely  precede  technique,  inas- 
much  as  many  structural  problems — and,  above  all,  the 
producing  of  the  single  effect — call  for  considerable  facility 
with  words.  Finally,  style  that  expresses  the  author's 
point  of  view  is  gained  only  through  that  point  of  view. 
But  this  is  the  result  of  natural  disposition  and  culture. 
To  seek  these  in  technique  would  be  as  foolish  as  to  seek, 
in  elocution  and  stagecraft,  the  power  of  composing 
Hamlet's  soliloquy. 


ATMOSPHERE  193 


Sub-Chapter  E. — Atmosphere. 

1.  What  atmosphere  is.  In  the  painter's  art  atmosphere 
means  'the  feeling  or  effect,  as  of  air,  light,  space,  or 
warmth,  given  as  an  environment  of  any  subject '.  (Stan- 
dard Dictionary.)  Thus,  the  atmosphere  of  Rembrandt's 
masterpiece,  The  Night  Watch,  is  the  quite  indescribable 
enrichening  influence  of  a  peculiarly  mellow  amber  light 
which  suffuses  the  scene.  In  literature  the  word  describes 
a  quality  of  the  story  setting  and  staging.  It  is  the  emo- 
tional flavor  of  the  place  and  time  in  which  the  dramatic 
events  unfold.  For  instance,  in  Stevenson's  tale,  The 
Merry  Men,  it  Is  the  feeling  awakened  by  the  Scotch  coast 
around  Aros,  where  '  great  granite  rocks  ...  go  down  to- 
gether in  troops  into  the  sea,  like  cattle  on  a  summer's  day.' 

There  they  stand,  for  all  the  world  like  their  neighbors 
ashore;  only  the  salt  water  sobbing  between  them  instead 
of  the  quiet  earth,  and  clots  of  sea-pink  blooming  on  their 
sides  instead  of  heather,  and  the  great  sea  conger  to 
wreathe  about  the  base  of  them  instead  of  the  poisonous 
viper  of  the  land.     .     .     . 

I  have  often  been  out  there  in  a  dead  calm  at  the  slack 
of  the  tide;  and  a  strange  place  it  is,  with  the  sea  swirling 
and  coming  up  and  boiling  like  the  cauldrons  of  a  linn, 
and  now  and  again  a  little  dancing  mutter  of  sound  as 
though  the  Roost  were  talking  to  itself. 

Many  students  get  the  notion  that  environment  is 
atmosphere.  And  so  they  fall  into  the  technical  blunder 
of  trying  to  produce  atmosphere  by  elaborate  descriptions 
of  scenery.  Their  belief  is  false,  and  their  practice  only 
occasionally  sound.  The  atmosphere  is,  be  it  repeated, 
the    impression    which    environment    makes    upon    the 


194  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

beholder  and  which  the  beholder,  in  writing,  seeks  to 
convey  to  his  readers.^ 

It  is,  if  you  will  allow  the  phrase,  the  rock-and-water 
feeling  which  Aros  aroused  in  Stevenson.  This  feeling 
is  not  in  the  rocks  and  the  sea;  it  is  in  their  beholder. 
They  only  stir  him;  the  response  is  his  own,  private, 
unique,  and  in  some  respects  spontaneous. 

This  response  is  quite  mysterious.  Nothuig  in  the 
scene  clearly  accounts  for  its  precise  quality,  any  more 
than  the  known  chemical  structure  of  alcohol  explains 
the  unique  exhilaration  that  comes  from  drinking  wine. 
Poe  has  given  perfect  utterance  to  this  fact  in  his  match- 
less atmosphere  story.  The  Fall  of  the  House  of  Usher,  from 
which  we  cannot  cite  too  often: 

What  was  it — I  paused  to  think — what  was  it  that  so 
unnerved  me  in  the  contemplation  of  the  House  of  Usher? 
It  was  a  mystery  all  insoluble;  nor  could  I  grapple  with 
the  shadowy  fancies  that  crowded  upon  me  as  I  pondered. 
I  was  forced  to  fall  back  upon  the  unsatisfactory  conclu- 
sion, that  while,  beyond  doubt,  there  are  combinations  of 
very  simple  natural  objects  whi^h  have  the  power  of  thus 
affecting  us,  still  the  analysis  of  this  power  lies  among 

1 1  cannot  resist  cal  ing  attention  to  the  error  of  some  excellent 
critics  and  scholars  who  give  to  the  art  of  producing  atmosphere  the 
name  of  Impressionism.  Nothing  warrants  this  designation.  Im- 
pressionism is  the  theory  and  practice  of  reporting  scenes  and  events 
in  terms  of  their  immediately  sensed  colors,  sounds,  forms,  flavors, 
and  other  primitive  qualities.  The  impressionist's  ideal  is  to  render 
only  that  much  of  the  world  which  is  given  to  him  in  raw  sensation. 
The  ideal  of  the  atmospheric  painter  or  writer,  on  the  contrary,  is 
to  transmit  the  peculiar  and  full  reality  of  scenes.  To  accomplish 
this,  he  does  not  limit  himself  to  his  own  immediate  impressions. 
He  often  draws  upon  his  subtlest  analogies  and  his  most  tediously 
wrought  reflections.  Anything  that  will  produce  the  desired  effect 
upon  the  reader  is  eligible.  Of  course,  it  commonly  happens  that  a 
writer  of  atmosphere  uses  impressionistic  material,  but  this  is  only 
because  the  latter  chances  to  convey  the  desired  effect.  His  very 
next  scene  may  be  handled  in  a  wholly  different  manner. 


ATMOSPHERE  195 

considerations  beyond  our  depth.  It  was  possible,  I 
reflected,  that  a  mere  different  arrangement  of  the  par- 
ticulars of  the  scene,  of  the  details  of  the  picture,  would  be 
sufficient  to  modify,  or  perhaps  to  annihilate  its  capacity 
for  sorrowful  impression.     .     .     . 

This  conjecture  of  Poe's  has  been  confirmed  by  modern 
psychology  in  many  fascinating  experiments.  Even  in 
simple  geometrical  figures,  minute  alterations  produce  a 
complete  transformation  of  one's  feeling  toward  them. 
Erase  from  a  circle  only  a  very  small  arc,  and  instantly 
your  perception  of  it  is  tinged  afresh;  and  your  thoughts 
sent  scurrying  up  strange  little  lanes  and  alleys  of  memory. 
You  may  now  say,  with  infinitesimal  pain,  that  a  perfect 
figure  has  been  marred;  and  the  ruin  of  it  may,  of  a 
sudden,  resemble  C,  or  perhaps  the  ground  plan  of  a 
corral,  or  the  cross-section  of  a  bomb,  or  any  of  a  thousand 
other  queer  things.  To  physician  and  psychologist,  this 
hypersensitivity  of  the  normal  mind  to  microscopical 
changes  in  objects  perceived  is  a  matter  of  absorbing 
interest.  To  the  story  writer  it  is  a  source  of  immeasur- 
able artistic  possibilities.  Thanks  to  it,  the  variety  of 
esthetic  effects  in  the  handling  of  even  commonplace 
scenes  is  prodigious.  In  comparison  with  it,  man's 
impressions  of  dramatic  action  are  singularly  few. 

2.  Atmosphere  as  the  single  effect  of  a  story.  This  last 
circumstance  tempts  many  a  novice  to  write  atmosphere 
stories.  And  almost  inevitably  he  comes  to  grief,  because 
the  atmosphere  story  is  very  different  from  a  story  with 
atmosphere.  This  distinction,  which  wiser  heads  than 
his  frequently  overlook,  must  now  be  explained. 

Every  story  whose  setting  must  be  staged  at  all  may 
have  atmosphere.  A  Lover  of  Flowers,  or  almost  any  other 
of  Mary  Wilkins  Freeman's  New  England  sketches,  has 
it  unmistakably.  A  Pair  of  Patient  Lovers,  like  most  of 
Howells'  stories,  also  possesses  it  in  measurable  degree. 


193  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

Likewise  with  the  works  of  nearly  every  experienced 
author.  Thin  it  may  be,  or  unconvincing;  yet  it  is  there. 
You  receive  a  definite  impression  and  feehng  of  the  place 
and  time  in  which  the  events  unfold.  The  two  are  not 
merely  reported  to  you.  Something  of  their  lights  and 
shadows  reaches  you  through  the  printed  page;  the  breezes 
from  the  written  hills  cool  you,  and  in  your  heart  burns 
warm  the  cheer  of  storied  firesides. 

But  usually  the  atmosphere  differs  in  emotional  value 
from  the  characters  and  the  plot  action.  Sometimes  it 
stands  in  sharp  contrast  to  the  latter  pair;  as  in  Moon- 
light, where  the  languorous,  dreamy,  bewitching  mid- 
summer night  shines  with  a  light  most  unlike  that  in  the 
hard  face  of  the  bigoted,  woman-hating  Abbe.  And 
when  there  is  no  such  contrast,  the  atmosphere  is  almost 
certain  to  play  a  subordinate  part  in  toning  the  story,  as 
in  The  Piece  of  String,  where  the  vivid  picture  of  market- 
day  at  Goderville  harmonizes  with  the  earthy  Norman 
thrift,  slyness,  and  simple  honesty  of  the  people  in  the 
tragedy.  Now,  in  neither  of  these  typical  instances  have 
we  an  atmosphere  story,  because  their  setting  does  not 
fix  the  narrative's  tone,  dominate  it,  and  produce  its 
single  effect.  All  of  which  is  a  negative  way  of  saying 
that  the  atmosphere  story  is  one  in  which  character  and  com- 
plication are  integrated  with  and  intensify  the  setting,  which 
latter  produces  the  single  effect.  As  Stevenson  puts  it,  in 
his  much-quoted  conversation  with  Graham  Balfour: 
''You  may  take  a  certain  atmosphere  and  get  action  and 
persons  to  express  and  realize  it.  I'll  give  you  an  example 
— The  Merry  Men.  There  I  began  with  the  feeling  of  one 
of  those  islands  on  the  west  coast  of  Scotland,  and  I 
gradually  developed  the  story  to  express  the  sentiment 
with  which  the  coast  affected  me." 

3.  Why  the  atmosphere  story  is  difficult.  A  brief  con- 
sideration of  this  structural  peculiarity  reveals  the  in- 


ATMOSPHERE  197 

trinsic  difficulty  of  the  atmosphere  story.  When  the 
setting  of  an  episode  fixes  the  tone,  and  the  other  dramatic 
factors  simply  intensify  it,  obviously  the  emotions  aroused 
by  the  characters  and  by  the  events  must  resemble,  in 
some  detectible  measure,  the  emotions  of  the  atmosphere. 
If  the  scene  is  pervaded  with  gloom,  the  hero  must  stalk 
up  and  down  his  dim  apartment,  gnawing  his  beard.  If, 
on  the  contrary,  the  hills  clap  their  hands  for  joy,  the 
heroine  must  join  in  smartly.  This  sounds  like  a  very 
simple  formula,  but  it  is  not.  Two  mighty  obstacles  con- 
front the  writer:  (a)  the  narrow  range  of  atmospheric 
effects,  and  (b)  the  lack  of  harmony  between  man  and 
Nature,  with  respect  to  the  feelings  each  arouses  in  an 
observer. 

a.  The  narrow  range  of  atmospheric  effects.  In  asserting 
that  the  range  of  atmospheric  effects  is  narrow,  we  seem 
to  be  contradicting  our  previous  statement  about  their 
prodigious  variety.  Range  and  variety,  however,  do  not 
mean  the  same.  Range  means  the  extent  of  variation; 
as  when  we  speak  of  the  range  of  the  human  voice.  The 
distance  separating  the  extreme  members  of  any  class  or 
species  is  the  range  of  that  species.  Variety,  on  the  other 
hand,  refers  to  the  number  of  distinctions  within  the 
species.  A  moment's  reflection  on  these  terms  will  assure 
you  that  no  connection  exists  between  the  range  and  the 
variety  of  anything  in  the  world.  For  instance,  the  range 
of  a  piano — seven  octaves  and  a  quarter — exceeds  that 
of  a  violin  which  covers  about  three  octaves.  But  the 
variety  of  a  violin  is  many  times  as  great  as  that  of  a 
piano,  for  the  piano  can  sound  only  twelve  different  tones 
between  each  octave,  while  the  violin  readily  sounds  fifty 
or  more,  whose  differences  only  the  most  sensitive  ear  can 
detect. 

Now,  this  contrast  appears  in  all  the  activities  of  the 
human  mind.     The  variety  of  odors  which  the  normal  man 


198  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

senses  is  very  great,  but  it  is  slight  beside  that  of  the  lights 
and  colors  which  he  readily  perceives.  He  distinguishes 
a  few  thousand  smells — four  or  five,  at  most;  but  his  eye 
reveals  to  him  over  thirty-six  thousand  hues.  Neverthe- 
less, the  .ange  of  the  odors  is  incomparably  vaster  than 
that  of  colors.  The  difference  between  the  smell  of  sandal- 
wood and  that  of  sour  milk  is  wider  than  the  difference 
between  the  gayest  yellow  and  the  dullest  dark  blue. 
Turpentine  is  more  unlike  roasted  coffee  than  green  is 
unlike  red.  And  so  generally,  even  in  those  complex  and 
elusive  feelings  which  the  story  teller  stirs  up. 

Take  as  a  well  marked  instance  the  emotions  awakened 
by  the  contemplation  of  scenery.  No  two  landscapes 
make  quite  the  same  impression  upon  the  spectator,  and 
so  there  are  truly  as  many  distinct  emotions  as  there  are 
combinations  of  sunlight,  breeze,  outdoor  warmth,  hills, 
dells,  and  crags.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  between  the 
most  terrible,  most  overwhelming  of  Nature's  patterns 
and  the  gentlest  of  her  green  fields  and  still  waters,  the 
difference  of  quality  is  comparatively  slight.  But  few 
fundamental  tjrpes  appear;  there  is  the  f rightfulness  of 
the  volcanic  eruption;  the  sublimity  of  iceberg,  mountain, 
and  roaring  mid-ocean;  the  depressing  dulness  of  a  gray 
prairie  day;  the  slumbrous  comfort  of  summer  afternoon; 
and  a  few  other  varieties.  But  all  the  pleasant  impres- 
sions resemble  one  another  in  some  underlying  character- 
istic in  which  a  simple  animal  joy  predominates, 
while  all  the  unpleasant  seem  merely  so  many  shadings 
of  three  things:  panic,  temperature,  and  color  feelings. 
I  do  not  believe  that  the  latter  reduce  to  such  a  simple 
triad  of  factors.  Air  pressure  and  the  movements  of 
physical  objects  certainly  give  rise  to  their  own  peculiar 
feelings,  although  I  seldom  find  myself  able  to  distinguish 
these  in  contemplating  a  landscape.  Doubtless  many 
other  forces  are  at  work  here  too.     But  the  question  of 


ATMOSPHERE  19& 

fact  here  is  quite  irrelevant  to  our  inquiry,  inasmuch  as  we 
are  dealing  exclusively  with  the  quality  of  impressions; 
and  beyond  all  dispute  the  latter  show  nothing  of  the 
tremendous  difference  which  everybody  feels  in  con- 
templating the  deeds  of  men. 

b.  The  lack  of  harmony  between  the  two  kinds  of  feelings. 
Human  acts  seem  to  fall  into  great  constellations  which 
are  farther  apart  than  the  stars.  Consider  onlj^  those  two 
which  most  concern  the  writer  of  fiction:  tragedy  and 
comedy.  They  have  nothing  whatever  in  common,  inso- 
far as  the  quality  of  their  emotions  is  concerned.  They 
differ  in  that  same  profound  manr^f^r  in  which  hircine 
odors  differ  from  fragrances.  It  io  a  difference,  not  of 
degree,  but  of  kind.  You  cannot  pass  from  one  to  the 
other  by  slight  gradations,  as  you  can  pass  from  the  joy 
of  a  noontide  landscape  to  the  melancholy  of  sunset  simply 
by  reducing  the  amount  of  light  that  falls  upon  the  scene. 
A  still  sharper  contrast  might  be  drawn  between  esthetic 
and  moral  feelings,  which,  in  spite  of  an  indubitable 
kinship  in  their  origins,  fall  quite  apart  in  their  mature 
modes.  But  such  analyses  belong  to  esthetics,  not  to  the 
technique  of  fiction;  so  we  must  waive  them.  We  have 
made  our  point,  that  the  range  of  atmospheric  effects  is 
slight;  and,  in  bringing  this  out,  we  have  also  indicated 
the  wider  scope  of  emotions  drawn  from  human  conduct, 
which  is  the  subject  matter  of  dramatic  narrative. 
We  now  return  to  our  technical  issue :  what  trouble  does 
all   this   make  for    the   writer    of    atmosphere   stories? 

The  trouble  is  that,  because  of  the  naturally  wide  range 
of  dramatic  qualities  (those  of  character  and  complication, 
I  mean),  these  cannot  he  forced  to  intensify  the  quality  of  the 
story  setting  except  by  our  artificially  narrowing  them.  And 
this  narrowing  can  generally  bo  accomplished  only  through 
the  use  of  abnormal  or  imposdble  characters  and  compli- 
cations.    But  to  work  up  such  material  into  coherent 


200  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

action  is  a  task  of  exceeding  difficulty,  calling  for  the 
highest  order  of  creative  imagination.  In  the  final  analy- 
sis, it  is  hard  because  both  the  purpose  of  it  and  the  pro- 
cedure run  contrary  to  our  habits  of  life.  For  an  elucida- 
tion of  these  points,  let  us  once  more  inspect  The  Fall  of 
the  House  of  Usher. 

The  'insufferable  gloom'  which  is  the  single  effect  here 
has  been  intensified  with  consummate  skill  by  the  char- 
acter delineation  of  Roderick  Usher  and  his  sister  and  by 
the  insidious,  mystifying  catastrophes  befalling  them  and 
their  domicile.  But  observe  at  what  cost  this  has  been 
accomplished.  "Gloom  is  deepened  only  by  whatsoever 
produces  gloom.  ^And  the  only  thing  in  human  nature 
which  produces  it  is  the  mood  itself,  or  at  least  some  of 
its  bodily  manifestations.  In  Nature,  the  gray  of  low- 
hung  clouds  or  of  a  winter  sea  may  evoke  that  hue  of 
melancholy;  but  the  gray  of  aged  hairs  or  of  anemic  cheeks 
will  not.  In  other  words,  the  causes  of  the  mood  in  Nature 
and  in  man  are  disparate;  the  former  induces  it  through 
simple  colors  and  sounds  and  forms,  while  the  latter  does  so 
only  through  sympathetically  affecting  his  beholder.  -^  The 
beholder  must  perceive  such  lineaments  and  behavior  as 
the  guest  of  Roderick  Usher  noted  in  his  host.  Then  will 
the  feelings  associated  with  them  well  up  in  their  witness.^ 
It  is  by  a  sort  of  instinctive  interpretation — or  shall  we 
say  an  imitation? — that  this  happens,  whereas,  in  the 

^This  is  not  what  happens  in  perceiving  a  humorous  character; 
for  what  amuses  the  spectator  of  a  man  who  is  doing  something  comi- 
cal may  not  be  comical  to  the  man  himself.  It  may  be  humiHating 
and  painful.  But  this  exception  does  not  detract  from  its  present 
appUcation  to  the  atmosphere  story.  And  the  reason  is  that  the 
comic  cannot  be  used  as  the  single  effect  of  an  atmosphere  story,  inas- 
much as  there  is  no  humor  in  mere  Nature.  It  is  never  the  setting 
which  supplies  that  pecuUar  and  baffling  incongruity  that  moves  us 
to  laughter.  The  comic  exists  only  in  thought  about  intents,  ideals, 
and  achievements. 


ATMOSPHERE  201 

melancholy  brought  on  by  natural  scenes,  there  seems  to 
be  nothing  more  than  a  little  understood  chemical  process 
which  certain  light  waves,  air  pressures,  and  temperatures 
set  up  in  the  nervous  system. 

Now,  it  happens — probably  by  the  merest  coincidence 
— that  some  of  the  feelings  caused  by  these  chemisms 
closely  resemble  those  associated  with  certain  thoughts. 
J?hus  the  melancholy  of  a  dull  landscape  is  much  like  the 
melancholy  attending  Usher's  thought  of  Lady  Madeline's 
approaching  dissolution.  Hence  it  is  that  the  latter  may 
be  used  to  intensify  the  former.  But  there  are  very  few 
thoughtful  feelings  which  resemble  the  other  kind  sufficiently 
to  he  so  employed.  The  feelings  of  dramatic  action  and  the 
still  larger,  more  alien  class  of  ethical  emotions  have  no 
counterpart  in  mere  scenic  effects ;  at  most,  they  remotely 
suggest  a  few  of  the  latter.  Therefore,  they  cannot  serve 
to  intensify  atmosphere.  And  because  of  this  a  character 
which  is  used  to  this  end  must  almost  invariably  be  depicted 
so  as  to  present,  in  strong  exaggeration,  some  undramatic, 
non-ethical,  and  even  passive  trait.  Roderick  Usher  per- 
fectly illustrates  this  limitation.  In  mien  and  behavior 
he  is  a  mortal  the  like  of  which  never  walked  this  earth 
of  ours. 

.  .  .  The  character  of  his  face  had  been  at  all  times 
remarkable.  A  cadaverousness  of  complexion;  an  eye 
large,  liquid  and  luminous  beyond  comparison;  lips  some- 
what thin  and  very  pallid,  but  of  a  surpassingly  beautiful 
curve :  .  .  .  these  features,  with  an  inordinate  expan- 
sion above  the  regions  of  the  temple,  made  up  altogether  a 
countenance  not  easily  to  be  forgotten.  And  now  in  the 
mere  exaggeration  of  the  prevailing  character  of  these 
features,  and  of  the  expression  they  were  wont  to  convey, 
lay  so  much  of  change  that  I  doubted  to  whom  I  spoke. 
The  now  ghastly  pallor  of  the  skin,  and  the  now  miracu- 
lous lustre  of  the  eye,  above  all  things  startled  and  even 
awed  me.  .  .  .  The  silken  hair,  too,  had  been  suffered 
to  grow  all  unheeded,  and  as,  in  its  wild  gossamer  texture, 


202  SHORT  ^It^xiY  WRITING 

it  floated  rather  than  fell  about  the  face,  I  could  not,  even 
with  effort,  connect  its  arabesque  expression  with  any  idea  of 
simple  humanity. 

Please  note  this  very  last  clause,  which  I  have  italicized. 
To  my  mind  it  indicates  that  Poe  comprehended  and 
deliberately  practiced  the  very  principle  of  character 
drawing  just  laid  down.  For  the  sake  of  deepening  the 
insufferable  gloom  of  the  setting,  he  sacrificed  the  very 
humanity  of  Usher.  Every  succeeding  paragraph  of  the 
story  confirms  this  a  little  more.  Ask  yourself  about 
Usher's  conduct.  Think  of  his  fluctuating  voice,  "vary- 
ing rapidly  from  a  tremulous  indecision  (when  the  animal 
spirits  seem  utterly  in  abeyance)  to  that  species  of  ener- 
getic concision — that  abrupt,  weighty,  unhurried,  smd 
hollow-sounding  enunciation — that  leaden,  self-balanced, 
and  perfectly  modulated  guttural  utterance,  which  may  be 
observed  in  the  lost  drunkard  .  .  . "  Was  there  ever 
such  a  voice?  And  does  the  lost  drunkard  possess  it? 
I  do  not  believe  it,  and  neither  did  Poe.  Usher's  'morbid 
acuteness  of  the  senses',  on  the  other  hand,  is  commonly 
found,  but  always  in  neurasthenics  and  other  ailing  folk. 
Likewise  with  his  vague,  objectless  fears.  But  his  wild 
improvisations  on  the  guitar,  his  phantasmagoric  paint 
ings,  his  spontaneous  poetizing,  and  the  wild  reading  from 
insane  books, — all  these  in  combination  can  belong  only 
to  a  dream-creature.  He  is  the  passive  victim  of  circum- 
stances. He  is  stripped  of  all  moral  power,  as  far  removed 
from  virtue  and  vice  as  the  lowest  brutes  are.  And  there 
resides  in  him  no  other  impulse,  no  other  appetite,  no 
other  idea,  no  other  purpose  save  such  as  are  born  of  his 
morbidity.  In  short,  he  is  not  a  man — as  Poe  says  can- 
didly— ^but  a  commiserable  lunatic,  and  such  a  one  ay 
alienist  never  looked  upon. 

If,   now,   intensification   of  the   setting  requires   that 
human  nature  be  thus  falsified,  does  not  the  discomfiture 


ATMOSPHERE  203 

*^i  the  would-be  writer  of  atmosphere  stories  appear  with- 
out further  ado?  Just  as  it  is  easy  to  lie  magnificently 
but  very  hard  to  lie  persuasively,  so  it  is  simple  enough  to 
twist  the  stuff  of  human  life  into  terrifically  sombre  or 
horrible  or  exciting  fictions  but  almost  impossible  to  make 
the  people  in  such  fictions  coherent  enough  to  produce  the 
illusion  of  life.  The  ultimate  cause  of  this  difficulty  we 
have  already  mentioned.  It  is  the  very  fact  to  which 
Poe  alludes  with  such  timely  acumen:  the  quality  of  each 
individual  object  we  perceive  does  not  reside  in  its  parts 
or  elements,  as  such,  but  in  some  elusive  peculiarity  of 
their  combination  and  interrelating.  To  speak  in  the 
tongue  of  psychology,  each  entity  has  its  own  unique 
form-quality;  and  what  this  is,  no  man  can  deduce  from 
the  thing's  isolated  constituents.  It  follows,  then,  that 
the  writer  who  disintegrates,  in  imagination,  a  human  life 
and  then  integrates  some  of  the  fragments,  to  heighten 
the  atmosphere's  quality;  must  proceed  blindly  and  by 
the  merest  guess-work,  nine  times  out  of  ten. 

Few  are  the  men  who  have  triumphed  over  this  obstacle, 
and  even  they  bear  witness  to  its  stubbornness.  Their 
pages  show  many  a  scar  of  battle  with  the  all-but-impos- 
sible. Poe's  heroes  and  villains,  marvelously  constructed 
though  they  are,  are  not  people  at  all.  Stevenson's  are 
vastly  more  human  and  comprehensible,  although  often 
either  puppets  with  only  clothes  and  mien  to  match  the 
atmosphere — as  in  The  Merry  Men — or  else  not  intensi- 
fiers  at  all — as  in  Will  o'  the  Mill,  where  the  love  storj^ 
of  the  miller's  boy  and  the  parson's  Marjory,  though 
profoundly  colored  and  shaped  by  the  environment, 
nevertheless  takes  its  own  course  and  turns  the  reader 
from  the  wonderful  atmosphere.  Even  more  instructive 
than  Poe  and  Stevenson,  though,  is  Joseph  Conrad,  who 
certainly  ranks  as  the  master  of  masters  in  the  narrow, 
lofty  kingdom  of  Atmosphere.     His  finest  work,  Almayer^s 


204    .  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

Folly,  certainly  equals  the  best  of  Poe,  who  is  Conrad's 
only  serious  rival.  To  quote  a  recent  reviewer:  ''What 
impresses  one  most  in  re-reading  this  tragedy  of  a  Bornean 
river  is  the  wonderful  color-effects  that  lie  hidden  in  its 
words.  The  story  is  almost  subordinate  in  interest  to  the 
tawny  Oriental  landscape,  with  its  loneliness,  treachery, 
and  hint  of  life's  brevity.  .  .  .  Over  against  the  ineffec- 
tual littleness  of  the  men  who  creep  along  the  lonely 
river's  banks  is  set  the  mighty  majesty  of  nature.  It  is 
this  element  which  lends  the  story  grandeur  and  helps 
it  to  outwear  time."^  This  comment  accurately  touches 
both  the  strength  and  the  weakness  of  Conrad,  and  so  of 
the  atmosphere  story  as  a  species.  The  landscape  sub- 
ordinates the  story,  as  it  should;  but  in  doing  so  it  mini- 
mizes dramatic  movement  and  integrity  of  character. 
Hence  the  result  is,  if  nothing  worse,  sluggish;  and  it  is 
very  likely  to  give  us,  instead  of  people,  fantastic  frag- 
ments and  jumbles  of  human  traits.  Now,  by  sheer 
genius,  Conrad  shuns  this  graver  catastrophe,  but  he 
falls  victim  to  the  lesser  one.  Let  the  student  read  care- 
fully— and  sympathetically — Conrad's  collection  of  short 
stories  entitled  Tales  of  Unrest.^  He  will  find  that,  while 
the  dramatic  conceptions  are  strong,  they  drag,  at  times 
most  painfully.  The  very  shadows  on  the  ground  are 
stumbling-blocks  to  the  people  here,  the  breezes  halt 
their  speech,  and  the  day's  heat  wilts  their  judgment.  To 
be  sure,  all  this  is  not  enough  to  mar  the  special  beauty 
of  Conrad  very  much,  and  it  is  a  slight  failure  in  compari- 
son with  his  awe-inspiring  power  of  description.  But  it 
exemplifies  the  atmosphere  story's  supreme  difficulty 
where  this  difficulty  has  been  most  nearly  overcome. 
3.  The  natural  theme  of  the  atmosphere  story.  The 
student  who  has  thoughtfully  followed  the  above  com- 

iConingsby  Dawson,  in  Everybody's,  September,  1912. 

"^Scrihner's. 


ATMOSPHERE  205 

ments  will  doubtless  discover  for  himself  that  there  is  at 
least  one  subject  and  one  type  of  plot  which  can  turn  to 
profit  all  the  inconveniences  of  the  atmosphere  story.  It 
is  the  story  of  the  triumphant  environment;  of  which 
there  ^re  two  opposite  types.  The  first  is  the  story 
wherein  we  see  men  and  women  moulded  by  the  blind 
forces  of  Nature,  and  human  beliefs  and  aspirations  shown 
to  be  vain  delusions,  empty  hopes  in  a  hopeless  world.  Of 
this  sort  is  everything  that  Thomas  Hardy  has  written. 
His  minor  tales,  such  as  Lifers  Little  Ironies,  smoothly  fit 
Prosser  Hall  Frye's  characterization  of  their  author's  theme : 

But  with  him  this  varied  region  (Egdon  Heath,  the 
locus  of  The  Return  of  the  Native)  .  .  .  is  no  longer 
mere  scenery,  the  spectacular  decoration  of  an  indifferent 
comedy,  wherein  man  moves  untouched  save  for  some 
occasional  vaporous  sentimentality.  On  the  contrary, 
it  has  been  promoted  to  a  fatal  and  grandiose  complicity 
in  human  affairs,  of  a  piece  with  destiny,  overpowering  the 
minds  of  the  actors,  tyrannizing  over  their  lives  and  for- 
tunes, and  appearing  in  any  one  locality  as  but  the  par- 
ticular agency  and  manifestation  of  a  single  consistent, 
universal  power.^ 

The  other  type  of  story  theme  is  Hawthorne's.  Here 
again,  something  in  the  setting  dominates  events  and  the 
people  in  them;  but  it  is  no  longer  blind  Nature,  it  is  the 
Moral  Law — or,  if  you  like,  God — and  on  the  other  side, 
the  Devil.  Every  reader  of  Hawthorne  is  perfectly 
familiar  with  this  supernatural  drama;  but  it  will  do  no 
harm  to  quote  from  Frye's  admirable  interpretation  of  it : 

The  Puritans  themselves,  his  ancestors,  were  dominated 
by  a  single  idea  .  .  .  the  idea  of  duty  and  guilt,  of 
something  owing  God  and  of  man's  inability  to  redeem  the 
debt  by  his  own  efforts.  Under  the  influence  of  this  idea 
their  life  had  undergone  a  momentous  transformation.  .  .  . 
To  all  appearances  it  was  with  the  inclemency  of  the 

^  Reviews  and  Criticisms,  107. 


206  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

weather,  the  hostiHty  of  the  elements,  at  most  the  enmity 
of  the  savages  that  they  were  contending.  In  reahty  this 
was  all  but  a  veil;  it  was  the  devil  and  his  ministers,  the 
forces  of  darkness  and  evil,  the  powers  of  hell  that  disputed 
with  them  for  the  salvation  of  their  souls.  And  so  to  their 
excited  imagination  the  conflict  took  on  a  solemn  and 
grandiose  significance.  .  .  .  Nothing  was  too  small  or 
remote  to  remain  aloof  or  unaffected;  there  were  signs  in 
heaven  and  on  earth,  omens  and  portents  and  fore- 
warnings,  earthquake,  meteor  and  eclipse,  or  dream  and 
vision.  .  .  .  The  world  of  spirits  was  divided  in  their 
quarrel,  while  reality  itself  was  a  mask,  which  might  serve 
indifferently  for  the  covert  of  a  friend  or  the  ambush  of  a 
foe.i 

Is  it  not  plain  why  stories  spun  around  such  a  world- 
view  heighten  their  atmospheric  effect  less  disastrously 
than  the  more  realistic  variety  of  fiction  does?  It  is 
because  their  dramatic  factors  are  not  In  the  people  but 
in  the  setting  itself,  and  hence  the  weaker,  illusory  crises 
in  the  thoughts  and  feelings  of  hero  and  heroine  which  the 
atmosphere  tends  to  dampen  are  not  a  true  part  of  the 
deeper  complication.  They  are  puppets,  not  through  the 
writer's  clumsy  portrayal  but  because  they  really  are 
nothing  more  than  the  creatures  of  some  Hidden 
Showma.n.  They  are  inactive  through  no  sluggishness  of 
the  author's  style  but  only  because  they  are,  by  inmost 
nature,  passive  victims  of  cosmic  circumstance.  In 
short,  the  active  force  which,  in  ordinary  dramatic  narra- 
tive, wells  up  only  in  men  and  women  now  displays  itself 
as  a  potency  of  the  environment,  which  therewith  becomes, 
so  far  as  the  emotional  effect  upon  readers  is  concerned,  a 
character.  Be  it  blind  Nature  or  be  it  a  god,  in  either 
case  this  environment  is  endowed  with  a  kind  of  person- 
ality having  aims  and  human  ways  of  doing.  Its  plans 
may  be  past  understanding,  but  only  by  reason  of  secrets. 

*  Reviews  and  Criticisms,  122  ff. 


ATMOSPHERE  207 

withheld  from  us  and  not  because  their  logic  and  their 
emotional  springs  are  alien  to  our  minds. 

We  may  finish  the  matter  with  a  paradox :  The  atmos- 
phere story  is  easiest  in  which  the  setting  is  not  setting 
at  all  but  the  dominant  character  in  a  drama  without 
setting.  In  Stevenson  Nature  is  often  the  leading  lady;  in 
Poe,  Conrad,  Hardy  and  most  other  atmospherists,  it  is 
the  villain;  and  in  Hawthorne  it  is  sometimes  the  hero's 
silhouette.  But  in  all  these  realms  of  fancy,  it  is  the  great 
original  man  without  a  country.  Nature  has  no  environ- 
ment, and  God  is  without  a  dwelling  place.  Beyond 
them,  there  is  neither  time  nor  place. 

4.  Atmosphere  as  an  intensifier.  Thougn  the  genuine 
atmosphere  story  has  narrow  range  and  presents  all  but 
insuperable  obstacles,  the  story  with  atmosphere  is  mod- 
erately easy  to  manipulate,  plastic,  and  highly  adaptable 
to  all  moods.  By  the  story  with  atmosphere  I  mean,  of 
course,  a  narrative  wherein  the  tone  of  the  setting  is  made 
to  reinforce  either  the  theme  of  a  thematic  development, 
or  the  dominant  character  of  a  character  story,  or  the 
complication  of  a  complication  story.  Almost  every 
good  author  employs  atmosphere  thus,  with  some  degree 
of  skill  and  charm.  And  its  emploj^nent  is  governed  by  a 
few  rules  which  can  be  formulated  with  some  accuracy, 
though  not  with  as  much  as  we  might  wish.  In  the  main, 
they  are  merely  special  applications  of  principles  we  have 
already  become  familiar  with. 

a.  The  intensifying  effect  is  conveyed  best  hy  a  charac- 
terization of  the  effect  itself  rather  than  by  a  description  of 
the  objects  which,  in  assemblage,  give  rise  to  it.  At  first 
reading,  this  may  sound  either  meaningless  or  at  least 
improfitable.  Of  course  the  effect  is  most  vivid  when 
characterized,  you  may  say;  so  the  advice  is  idle.  But 
such  an  observation  misses  the  point,  which  is  that  char- 
acterization of  causes  is  by  no  means  the  same  as  characteri- 


208  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

zation  of  their  effects.  This  is  one  of  the  most  important 
facts  in  all  artistic  technique,  be  it  the  technique  of  story 
writing  or  of  sculpture  or  of  etching.  It  is  no  peculiar 
secret  of  art,  but  a  general  fact  true  of  all  causes  and  all 
effects.  The  physicist  may  describe  to  you  ever  so  faith- 
fully the  nature  of  electricity  and  especially  the  differ- 
ences of  potential  that  go  with  differences  of  temperature. 
But  all  this  will  not  give  you  a  picture  of  the  thunderclap 
which  follows  the  flash  of  lightning.  For  here,  and  every- 
where else,  there  is  some  unique  quality  in  the  effect  which 
the  cause  does  not  possess  and  which  therefore^cannot  be 
described  in  terms  of  the  cause.  Illustrations  from  fiction, 
however,  will  doubtless  guide  the  learner  more  surely; 
so  let  us  press  into  service  that  master  of  happy  charac- 
terization, Daudet,  and  then  contrast  with  him  the  least 
happy  of  all  characterizers  among  writers  of  repute, 
namely  Mary  Wilkins  Freeman. 

In  The  Lighthouse  of  the  Sanguinaires  Daudet  is  depict- 
ing at  the  outset  the  coast  of  the  island  where  the 
episode  unrolls.     In  the  midst  of  the  picture  comes  this : 

.  .  .  When  the  mistral  or  the  tramontana  did  not  blow 
too  hard,  I  would  seat  myself  between  two  rocks  at  the 
water's  edge,  amid  the  gulls  and  blackbirds  and  swallows, 
and  I  would  stay  there  almost  all  day  in  that  sort  of  stupor 
and  delicious  prostration  which  are  born  of  gazing  at  the 
sea.  You  know,  do  you  not,  that  pleasant  intoxication 
of  the  mind?  You  do  not  think ;  you  do  not  dream.  Your 
whole  being  escapes  you,  flies  away — is  scattered  about. 
You  are  the  gull  that  plunges  into  the  sea,  the  spray  that 
floats  in  the  sunlight  between  two  waves — the  white  smoke 
of  yonder  steamer  rapidly  disappearing.     .     .     . 

Here  you  have  an  extreme  instance,  in  which  the  details 
of  the  scene  are  either  ignored  or  baldly  mentioned,  and 
the  whole  quality  of  it  made  known  through  the  mental 
effect  the  place  makes  upon  the  narrator.  Powerful  this 
device  is,  provided  the  reader  is  familiar  with  the  hypnotic 


ATMOSPHERE  209 

drowsiness  which  the  sea  induces;  but  it  fails  sadly,  if  he 
has  never  experienced  it.  In  the  latter  case  there  always 
remains  a  second  method,  namely  that  of  describing  the 
material  effect  of  the  setting  upon  persons  or  things  in  it. 
Thus,  in  The  Little  Pies: 

It  was  a  magnificent  morning,  one  of  those  bright, 
sunny  May  mornings  which  fill  the  fruit-shops  with  clus- 
ters of  cherries  and  bunches  of  lilac. 

Or  again,  in  The  Pole's  Mule: 

He  who  never  saw  Avignon  in  the  time  of  the  Popes  has 
seen  nothing.  .  .  .  Ah!  the  happy  days!  the  happy 
city!  Halberds  that  did  not  wound,  state  prisons  where 
they  put  wine  to  cool.     No  famines;  no  wars. 

And,  as  a  last  sample,  the  fine  handling  in  The  Elixir  of 
Father  Gaucher: 

Twenty  years  ago,  the  Premontres,  or  the  White 
Fathers,  as  we  Provencals  call  them,  had  fallen  into  utter 
destitution.  If  you  could  have  seen  their  convent  in  those 
days,  it  would  have  made  your  heart  ache. 

The  high  wall,  the  Pacome  Tower,  were  falling  to  pieces. 
All  around  the  grass-grown  cloisters,  the  pillars  were 
cracked,  the  stone  saints  crumbling  in  their  recesses. 
Not  a  stained  glass  window  whole,  not  a  door  that  would 
close.  In  the  courtyard,  in  the  chapels,  the  wind  from  the 
Rhone  blew  as  it  blows  in  Camargue,  extinguishing  the 
candles,  breaking  the  leaden  sashes  of  the  windows, 
spilling  the  water  from  the  holy-water  vessels.  But- 
saddest  of  all  was  the  convent  belfry,  silent  as  an  empty 
dove-cote;  and  the  fathers,  in  default  of  money  to  buy  a 
bell,  were  obliged  to  ring  for  matins  with  clappers  of 
almond-wood. 

These  are  all  perfect,  and  because  Daudet  has  clearly 
grasped  and  applied  the  profound  truth  that  we  judge 
things  most  acutely  by  their  consequences.  Notice 
especially  the  simple  skill  of  the  first  quotation.  Instead 
of  drawing  an  elaborate  picture  of  a  May  morning,  Daudet 


210  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

simply  tells  you  the  effect  it  had  upon  the  fruit-shops. 
Here  his  technique  is  clear  as  day,  whereas  in  the  second 
citation  it  is  not.  The  reader  probably  will  have  to  stop 
and  think  that,  when  the  author  says:  "Halberds  that 
did  not  wound,  state  prisons  where  they  put  wine  to  cool," 
he  is  deftly  naming  the  results  of  the  peaceful  rule  of  the 
Popes  in  Avignon.  But,  once  you  think  about  it,  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  this  is  precisely  what  he  is  doing. 

Contrast  with  these  exquisite  passages  the  opening 
description  of  the  Munson  house,  in  Mrs.  Freeman's 
A  Symphony  in  Lavender.  Before  criticizing  it,  we 
must  recall  that,  in  this  story,  the  setting  ought  to 
integrate  naturally  with  the  dramatic  action;  for  the 
sight  of  the  house  and  its  adornments  indirectly  leads 
the  narrator  into  contact  with  the  heroine  and,  as  the  title 
indicates,  sets  the  tone  of  the  story. 

.  .  .  The  first  object  in  Ware,  outside  of  my  immediate 
personal  surroundings,  which  arrested  my  attention  was 
the  Munson  house.  ^Then  I  looked  out  of  my  window  the 
next  morning  it  loomed  up  directly  opposite,  across  the 
road,  dark  and  moist  from  the  rain  of  the  night  before. 
There  were  so  many  elm  trees  in  front  of  the  house  I  was 
in,  that  the  little  pools  of  rain  water,  still  standing  in  the 
road  here  and  there,  did  not  glisten  and  shine  at  all, 
although  the  sun  was  bright  and  quite  high.  The  house 
itself  stood  far  enough  back  to  allow  of  a  good  square  yard 
in  front,  and  was  raised  from  the  street-level  the  height 
of  a  face-wall.  Three  or  four  steps  led  up  to  the  front 
walk.  On  each  side  of  the  steps,  growing  near  the  edge  of 
the  wall,  was  an  enormous  Ulac-tree  in  full  blossom.  I 
could  see  them  tossing  their  purple  clusters  between  the 
elm  branches;  there  was  quite  a  wind  blowing  that  morning. 
A  hedge  of  lilacs,  kept  low  by  constant  cropping,  began 
at  the  blooming  lilac-trees,  and  reached  around  the  rest 
of  the  yard,  at  the  top  of  the  face-wall.  The  yard  was 
gay  with  flowers,  laid  out  in  fantastic  little  beds,  all 
bordered  trimly  with  box.  The  house  .  .  .  had  no 
beauty  in  itself,  being  boldly  plain  and  glaring,  like  all 


ATMOSPHERE  211 

of  its  kind;  but  the  green  waving  boughs  of  the  elms  and 
lilacs  and  the  undulating  shadows  they  cast  toned  it  down 
and  gave  it  an  air  of  coolness  and  quiet  and  lovely  reserve. 
I  began  to  feel  a  sort  of  pleasant,  idle  curiosity  concerning 
it  .  .  .  and  after  breakfast  ...  I  took  occasion 
to  ask  my  hostess     .     .     .     who  lived  there. 

The  student  is  urgently  requested  to  study  this  passage 
minutely,  comparing  its  turns  with  those  of  Daudet's. 
If  he  will  do  this,  he  will  discover  a  most  important  struc- 
tural difference  between  the  techniques  of  the  two  authars. 
Daudet  describes  by  noting  the  effects  of  the  described 
thing  upon  something  or  somebody  else.  Mrs.  Freeman 
describes  directly  and  then  notes  the  cause  of  the  described 
thing.  Thus,  she  tells  us  what  made  the  Munson  house 
look  dark  and  moist,  instead  of  telling  us  how  the  darkness 
and  moisture  of  it  affected  her  or  something  or  somebody 
in  the  story.  She  explains  why  the  pools  of  rain-water 
did  not  glisten,  but  she  does  not  tell  how  they  impressed 
her  or  what  change  or  quality  they  wrought  in  the  scene. 
She  sees  the  lilac-trees  tossing  their  blossoms;  but  Daudet 
would  have  told  you  what  the  motion  made  him  think 
about  and  feel,  or  perhaps  described  the  odd  little  shadows 
it  caused  to  flit  pendulously  across  the  sward. 

Now,  it  is  just  this  difference  which  marks  art  off  most 
sharply  from  science  and  other  practical  ways  of  thinking 
and  doing.  The  scientist  and  sometimes  the  business  man 
are  concerned  seriously  with  causes  and  reasons;  for, 
knowing  these,  they  are  enabled  to  control  the  effects  and 
thus  to  manage  the  world  according  to  their  liking.  But 
the  artist  does  not  care  to  dominate  finance  or  shape  poli- 
tics or  explain  the  ultimate  nature  of  carbon  and  bacteria; 
he  aims  only  to  depict  various  human  affairs,  especially 
the  natural  problems  of  life  and  human  nature's  way  of 
coping  with  them.  For  his  purposes,  therefore,  events 
and  objects  exhibit  themselves  with  clearest  contour  in 


212  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

their  influence  upon  man  and  man's  natural  environment. 
For  it  is  this  very  influence,  and  it  alone,  which  makes  them 
factors  in  lifers  drama.  To  narrate  causes,  while  develop- 
ing the  setting  of  a  story,  is  to  forget  the  very  nature  and 
ideals  of  art  itself;  it  is  to  become,  for  the  nonce,  practical 
or  scientific  or,  perhaps,  merely  garrulous. 

Much  less  offensive,  of  course,  is  flat,  unexplaining  de- 
scription of  details,  such  as  one  encounters  all  too  fre- 
quently in  the  pages  of  most  American  local-color  artists, 
whose  technique  is  generally  no  less  stiff  than  their  paro- 
chial ideas.  To  call  a  spade  a  spade,  a  black  horse  a 
black  horse,  and  so  on,  is  a  sin  of  omission  only.  It  does 
not  name  causes,  it  merely  fails  to  name  effects.  It  is 
therefore  a  neutral  method;  at  times  serving  admirably 
but  generally  so  weak  that  it  is  more  to  be  pitied  than 
censured. 

The  reader  is  particularly  warned  against  misconstruing 
the  above.  He  must  not  think  that  I  am  there  condemn- 
ing the  supposed  virtue  of  simplicity.  To  rate  low  the 
description  that  does  not  characterize  effects  is  by  no 
means  the  same  as  to  say  that  the  parables  of  the  Bible, 
for  instance,  are  ill  written  because  they  do  not  character- 
ize. It  is  true,  their  descriptive  passages  will  be  searched 
for  in  vain,  while  their  occasional  descriptive  words  are 
as  bald  as  mountain  granite.  But  this  is  precisely  as  it 
should  be;  for  the  parables,  as  we  have  said  elsewhere,  are 
not  short  stories  at  all,  but  fables  like  ^Esop's  (though  less 
ingenious  than  the  latter),  and  they  are  not  fables  with 
atmosphere.  Nor  could  they  have  been  such,  without 
complete  surrender  of  their  purpose.  Their  aim  was,  of 
course,  to  bring  home  to  some  barbarians  certain  pro- 
found moral  and  religious  themes.  Now,  the  emotional 
quality  of  the  latter  is  utterly  alien  to  that  of  landscapes, 
town  sights,  architecture,  furniture,  weather,  and  all  the 
^ther  elements  which  figure  in  the  setting  of  narrative 


ATMOSPHERE  213 

and  whose  effects  constitute  atmosphere.  How  futile  it 
would  have  been,  then,  to  have  essayed  intensifying  the 
idea  in,  say,  the  parable  of  the  prodigal  son  by  descanting 
upon  the  calm  and  comfort  of  his  old  homestead  or  upon 
the  filth  of  the  courtyards  where  he  devoured  husks  in 
the  last  days  of  folly!  Doubtless  such  word-painting 
would  have  a  power  all  its  own — but  this  very  excel- 
lence would  have  here  become  a  vice,  for  it  would  have 
muffled  the  still,  small  voice  of  the  sermon.  One  might 
as  well  try  to  accentuate  the  richness  of  human  song  with 
an  accompaniment  of  thunder-claps  and  surf  tumult. 
Wherever  atmosphere  distorts  or  obscures  the  single 
effect,  description  should  be  as  flavorless  and  as  unsugges- 
tive  as  possible.  It  should  vanish  behind  the  story,  even 
as  it  does  in  all  great  thematic  narratives  turning  around 
ethical  and  religious  ideas.  But  all  such  stories,  be  it 
repeated,  are  not  stories  with  atmosphere,  either  by 
right  or  in  fact.  Hence  what  we  have  been  saying  about 
the  handling  of  description  does  not  apply  to  them. 

b.  Atmosphere  is  integrated  intensively  by  letting  the 
action  of  characters  in  the  story  he  directed  toward  or  other- 
wise involve  such  elements  of  the  setting  as  are  intimately 
connected  with  the  tone  of  the  latter.  We  saw,  a  moment 
ago,  that  one  way  of  securing  effective  atmosphere  is  to 
characterize  its  effect.  We  have  now  to  ask  the  more 
special  question:  which  effect,  if  any,  lends  itself  best  to 
such  characterizing?  Broadly  speaking,  the  answer  runs 
thus:  the  best  effect  is  the  one  to  which  the  people  of  the 
story  respond  in  a  manner  that  affects  the  course  of  the 
story  somehow.  For  such  an  effect  is  most  closely  woven 
into  the  texture  of  the  plot  itself. 

Good  literature  abounds  with  instances  of  this,  but  there 
is  none  superior  to  Markheim.  A  great  technician  in 
every  fictional  problem,  Stevenson  was  at  his  best  in 
integrating  atmosphere.     Where  can  you  find  anything 


214  SHORT   STORY   WRITING 

more  iBnely  wrought  than  the  events  ensuing  upon  Mark- 
heim^s  murder  of  the  dealer? 

The  thought  was  yet  in  his  mind,  when,  first  one  and 
then  another,  with  every  variety  of  pace  and  voice — one 
deep  as  the  bell  from  a  cathedral  turret,  another  ringing 
on  its  treble  notes  the  prelude  of  a  waltz — the  clocks  began 
to  strike  the  hour  of  three  in  the  afternoon. 

The  sudden  outbreak  of  so  many  tongues  in  that  dumb 
chamber  staggered  him.  He  began  to  bestir  himself, 
going  to  and  fro  with  the  candle,  beleaguered  by  moving 
shadows,  and  startled  to  the  soul  by  chance  reflections. 
In  many  rich  mirrors,  some  of  home  design,  some  from 
Venice  or  Amsterdam,  he  saw  his  face  repeated  and 
repeated,  as  if  it  were  an  army  of  spies;  his  own  eyes  met 
and  detected  him;  and  the  sound  of  his  own  steps,  lightly 
as  they  fell,  vexed  the  surrounding  quiet.  And  still,  as  he 
continued  to  fill  his  pockets,  his  mind  accused  him  with  a 
sickeningiteration,of  the  thousand  faults  of  his  design.  .  .  . 

Observe  that  Stevenson  has  chosen  those  very  objects 
and  sights  and  sounds  which  most  naturally  might  play 
into  just  this  dramatic  situation.  Clocks  whose  striking 
impresses  the  murderer  as  though  they  were  alarums 
sounding  his  crime  abroad  and  summoning  the  inhabit- 
ants of  the  earth  to  his  pursuit.  Mirrors  which  fling 
back  into  his  face  that  very  face  itself,  but  so  shadowed 
and  shrunken  in  perspective  and  so  fleeting  that  its 
innumerable  manifestations  impress  him  as  an  army  of 
spies,  and  send  him  off  into  a  cold  panic.  These  dis- 
turbers of  his  fancied  seclusion  prey  upon  his  mind,  stir 
up  fears  that  otherwise  would  have  slumbered  um.ocuously, 
and  finally  drive  him  into  a  turmoil  of  conscience  and 
sophistry  which  precipitates  the  crucial  situation.  Here 
we  find  the  ideal  handling;  the  setting  is  much  more  than 
the  place  where  things  happen,  it  plays  a  part  in  the  march 
of  events,  even  as  the  dominant  character  does.  It 
makes  him  think,  it  harasses  him,  it  helps  lead  him  to 
confession. 


ATMOSPHERE  215 

c.  Those  elements  of  the  setting  figure  most  effectively  in 
the  action  which  enter  into  the  latter  most  frequently,  rather 
than  most  decisively.  This  rule  must  be  carefully  con- 
strued. It  is  a  generalization  which  story  factors  some- 
times restrict  and  obscure.  The  theme,  for  instance,  may 
include  the  thought  that  one  little  sight  or  sound  turns 
a  man  from  an  evil  course;  and  then,  of  course,  this  one 
little  sight  or  sound  must  be  played  up  tremendously  at 
the  dramatic  instant.  But  usually  stories  do  not  demand 
such  manipulation,  for  their  settings  only  reinforce  some 
emotional  quality  that  runs  through  their  entire  actions. 
In  all  such  cases,  the  writer's  task  is  identical  with  that 
of  the  musical  composer,  who,  starting  with  a  certain 
simple  combination  of  notes  (his  theme),  endeavors  to 
sustain,  evenly  yet  without  monotony,  their  unique  melody 
and  feeling  values  throughout  the  whole  composition. 
Now,  it  is  a  matter  of  easy  observation  that  a  series  of 
relatively  slight  impressions  harmoniously  related  pro- 
duces an  intenser  mood  in  us  than  the  same  impressions 
when  condensed  into  one  or  two  terrific  instants  of  appre- 
ciation. Thus,  a  symphony  one  hour  long  brings  to  life 
more  throbbingly  its  theme  than  the  most  exquisite  two 
or  three  bars  of  music  could.  And,  in  a  story,  the  most 
magnificent  picture  of  the  setting- crowded,  let  us  say, 
into  the  opening  paragraph,  will  heighten  the  single  effect 
much  less  potently  than  a  hundred  little  significant 
glimpses  of  tree,  sky,  and  brook  scattered  loosely  up  and 
down  the  whole  narrative. 

A  host  of  young  writers  seem  unaware  of  this  elementary 
psychological  fact.  They  cram  all  their  landscapes  into 
the  opening  event  and  leave  the  body  of  the  story  as  bare 
of  pictures  as  a  ledger.  The  result  is  twice  disastrous. 
In  the  first  place,  the  setting  has  scarcely  time,  in  the 
opening  event,  to  integrate  closely  with  the  other  factors 
of  the  story;  so  there  it  sits,  like  a  dainty  bonnet  on  the 


216  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

head  of  an  ill-favored  woman,  all  too  painfully  not  of  a 
piece  with  her.  In  the  second  place,  such  a  story,  moving 
from  fine  scenery  to  none  at  all,  is  almost  certain  to  pro- 
duce a  declining  effect — at  least  slightly.  This  danger, 
to  be  sure,  diminishes  as  the  dramatic  intensity  of  the 
complication  and  character  drawing  waxes.  Yet  it  is 
ever  present. 

d.  //  possible,  depict  the  setting  from  the  point  of  view  of  i 
the  dominant  character.  Should  some  co7nplication  make 
this  awkward,  choose  the  point  of  view  of  some  other  char- 
acter. If  this,  too,  is  impossible,  employ  that  of  a  non-par- 
ticipating narrator.  Only  as  a  last  resort,  depict  atmosphere 
objectively.  (By  point  of  view  we  here  mean,  of  course,  the 
angle  of  narration.)  The  reasons  for  this  rule  have 
already  been  set  forth  in  our  discussion  of  the  angle  of 
narration.^ 

»a.  175  etc. 


EXERCISES  217 


Exercises 

1.  Analyze  minutely  the  manner  in  which  the  settings 
of  the  following  stories  have  been  integrated  so  as  to 
produce  atmosphere.  State  precisely  which  of  the  above 
rules  have  been  adhered  to  and  which  have  not.  Can 
you  suggest  better  manipulation  anywhere? 

Haines,  Donald  Hamilton — Who  Only  Stand  and  Wait. 
(Everybody's,  Oct.,  1910.) 

Stringer,  Arthur — The  Man  Who  Made  Good.  (Every- 
body's, Dec,  1910.) 

Oppenheim,  Jas. — Slag.     (Everybody's,  June,  1911.) 
Hibbard,  Geo. — The  Skyscraper.    (Scribner's,  Jan.,  1911.) 
Dreiser,  Theodore — The   Mighty   Burke.      (McClure's, 
May,  1911.) 

Post,  Melville  D. — The  House  of  the  Dead  Man.  (Satur- 
day Ev.  Post,  Sept.  30,  1911.) 

2.  Take  the  characters  and  the  complication  of  some 
one  of  the  following  stories,  discover  the  single  effect, 
and  then  alter  the  author's  treatment  of  the  setting  so  as 
to  make  it  intensify  that  effect  better  than  it  now  does. 

Krog,  Fritz— Die  Wanderlust.     (McClure's,  Aug.,  1911.) 

Gerould,  Katherine  F. — The  Wine  of  Violence.  (Scrib^ 
ner's,  July,  1911.) 

Humphreys,  Mary  Gay —  For  East  is  East,  and  West  is 
West.'     (Scribner's,  Oct.,  1911.) 

Singmaster,  Elsie — The  Rebellion  of  Wilhelmina.  (Cen- 
tury, Sept.,  1911.) 

3.  Here  is  a  list  of  settings.  Designate  with  great  care 
the  emotional  qualities  of  each  one  with  which  you  are  at 
all  familiar;  and,  if  any  stories  suggest  themselves  to  you 
which  those  qualities  intensify,  sketch  the  plots. 


218  SHORT   STORY   WRITING 

Times  Square,  Manhattan,  at  seven  o'clock  Sunday 
morning. 

An  abandoned  church  in  the  Berkshire  hills. 

Noon  hour  in  a  knitting  mill. 

An  old-fashioned  New  England  parlor. 

Threshing  day  on  an  Iowa  farm. 

A  clear  winter  day  in  the  Canadian  woods. 

The  council  chamber  of  some  American  city,  during  a 
session  of  aldermen. 

A  camp  meeting  in  the  back  counties. 

A  sailors'  supply  store  in  an  American  seaport. 

A  village  drug  store. 

Around  a  baseball  bulletin  before  a  newspaper  office. 

4.  In  each  of  the  following  adages  is  the  germ  of  a 
hundred  tales.  Choose  the  one  that  appeals  most  strongly 
to  you  and  write  a  thematic  story  around  it,  working  as 
below  prescribed: 

What's  worth  doing  at  all  is  worth  doing  well. 

A  stitch  in  time  saves  nine. 

Half  a  loaf  is  better  than  no  loaf  at  all. 

Take  care  of  the  pence  and  the  pounds  will  take  care  of 
themselves. 

God  helps  them  that  help  themselves. 

A  small  leak  will  sink  a  big  ship. 

It  is  hard  for  an  empty  bag  to  stand  upright. 

Having  chosen  your  adage  and  the  theme  which  your 
story  is  to  exemplify,  proceed  as  follows : 

1.  Write  your  theme  (or  story  germ)  in  a  few  declara- 
tive sentences. 

2.  Pick  out  each  phase  of  the  idea  and  represent  it  by  a 
person  (or  by  many  persons)  acting.  For  instance,  if 
your  theme  is:  'A  weak,  cowardly  man  is  more  terrible 
than  a  brave  one  in  a  desperate  situation,'  depict  a  weak 
man,  a  brave  man,  and  a  desperate  situation  in  which  the 


EXERCISES  219 

coward  does  something  more  courageous  or  more  fool- 
hardy than  the  brave  man  would  do.  Then  find  an 
incident  exhibiting  the  coward  as  a  coward,  and  another 
revealing  the  courage  of  the  brave  man. 

3.  Write  a  brief  narrative  account  of  such  situations, 
paying  no  attention  to  anything  save  clarity.  If  possible, 
keep  the  natural  order  of  events. 

4.  Test  the  consistency  and  lifelikeness  of  the  resulting 
rough  story  by  thinking  through  all  the  episodes  from 
the  point  of  view  of  each  character  involved  in  them. 

5.  Eliminate  scenes  and  character  delineation  that  are 
not  strictly  necessary  to  convey  the  story.  Whenever 
possible,  make  one  episode  develop  two  or  three  essential 
ideas. 

6.  Test  the  order  of  events.  If  they  do  not  move  with 
even  or  rising  effectiveness,  recast  them  so  that  they  do. 
This  may  be  done  either  by  giving  them  a  new  order  or 
else  by  intensifying. 

7.  Fix  upon  the  dominant  emotional  tone  of  the  story 
as  a  whole.  With  this  clearly  in  mind,  re-write  from  start 
to  finish,  echoing  the  tone  whenever  possible.  Begin 
this  not  less  than  a  week  after  the  preceding  task  has  been 
finished. 

Warning,  Do  not  suppose  that  this  is  the  model  way 
of  writing  stories.  After  you  have  found  yourself,  you 
may  go  at  the  work  in  any  of  a  dozen  other  manners. 
But  this  exercise,  though  artificial  and  difficult,  is  valuable 
because  it  sharpens  the  fundamental  issues  of  technique. 

5.  Pick  out  from  the  following  abridged  fairy  tale  the 
theme,  the  complication,  the  characters,  and  the  action. 
Having  done  so,  write  a  1,000-word  story  outline  preserv- 
ing the  idea  and  the  typical  line  of  action  and  the  outcome 
of  the  original,  but  substituting  human  beings  for  the 
characters. 


220  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

Next  alter  your  version  so  that  it  will  become  a  genuine 
short  story,  and  then  finish  it  as  such. 

There  were  once  a  mouse,  a  bird,  and  a  sausage,  who 
formed  a  partnership. 

They  had  set  up  housekeeping,  and  had  lived  for  a 
long  time  in  great  harmony  together.  The  duty  of  the 
bird  was  to  fly  every  day  into  the  forests  and  bring  home 
wood ;  the  mouse  had  to  draw  water,  to  light  the  fire,  and 
lay  the  table-cloth;  and  the  sausage  was  cook. 

It  happened  one  day  that  the  bird  had  met  in  his  road 
another  bird,  to  which  he  had  boasted  of  their  happiness 
and  friendship  at  home. 

The  other  bird  repHed  scornfully,  "What  a  poor  Httle 
simpleton  you  are  to  work  in  the  way  you  do,  while  the 
other  two  are  enjoying  themselves  at  home!"  When  the 
mouse  has  lighted  the  fire  and  drawn  the  water  she  can 
go  and  rest  in  her  little  room  till  she  is  called  to  lay  the 
cloth.  The  sausage  can  sit  by  the  stove  while  he  watches 
that  the  dinner  is  well  cooked,  and  when  the  dinner  time 
arrives  he  devours  four  times  as  much  as  the  others  of 
broth  or  vegetables  till  he  quite  shines  with  salt  and  fat." 

The  bird,  after  listening  to  this,  came  home  quite  dis- 
contented, and,  laying  down  his  load,  seated  himself  at 
the  table  and  ate  so  much  and  filled  his  crop  so  full  that 
he  slept  next  morning  without  waking,  and  thought  this 
was  a  happy  life. 

The  next  day  the  little  bird  objected  to  go  and  fetch 
wood,  saying  that  he  had  been  their  servant  long  enough, 
and  that  he  had  been  a  fool  to  work  for  them  in  this  way. 
He  intended  at  once  to  make  a  change  and  seek  his  living 
in  another  way. 

After  this,  although  the  mouse  and  the  sausage  were 
both  in  a  rage,  the  bird  was  master,  and  would  have  his 
owTi  way.  So  he  proposed  that  they  should  draw  lots, 
and  the  lots  fell  so  that  the  sausage  was  to  fetch  the  wood, 
the  mouse  to  be  cook,  and  the  bird  to  draw  the  water. 
Now  what  was  the  consequence  of  all  this?  The  sausage 
went  out  to  get  wood,  the  bird  lighted  the  fire,  and  the 
mouse  put  on  the  saucepan  and  sat  down  to  watch  it  till 
the  sausage  returned  home  with  the  wood  for  the  next 
day.     But  he  stayed  away  so  long  that  the  bird,  who 


EXERCISES  221 

wanted  a  breath  of  fresh  air,  went  out  to  look  for  him. 
On  his  way  he  met  a  dog,  who  told  him  that,  having 
met  the  sausage,  he  had  devoured  him. 

The  bird  complained  greatly  against  the  dog  for  his 
conduct,  and  called  him  a  cruel  robber,  but  it  did  no 
good. 

The  little  bird,  full  of  sorrow,  flew  home  carrying  the 
wood  with  him  and  related  to  the  mouse  what  he  had 
seen.  They  were  both  very  grieved,  but  quickly  agreed 
that  the  best  thing  for  them  to  do  was  to  remain  together. 

From  that  time  the  bird  undertook  to  prepare  the  table, 
and  the  mouse  to  roast  something  for  supper,  and  to  put 
the  vegetables  into  the  saucepan,  as  she  had  seen  the 
sausage  do;  but  before  she  had  half  finished  her  task, 
the  fire  burned  her  so  terribly  that  she  fell  down  and  died. 

When  the  little  bird  came  home,  there  was  no  cook  to 
be  seen,  and  the  fire  was  nearly  out.  The  bird,  in  alarm, 
threw  the  wood  here  and  there,  cried  out,  and  searched 
everywhere,  but  no  cook  could  be  found. 

Meanwhile  a  spark  from  the  fire  fell  on  the  wood  and 
set  it  in  a  blaze,  so  that  there  was  danger  of  the  house 
being  burned.  The  bird  ran  in  haste  to  the  well  for 
water.  Unfortunately,  he  let  the  pail  fall  into  the  well, 
and,  being  dragged  after  it,  he  sank  into  the  water  and 
was  drowned. 

6.  Each  of  the  following  stories  typifies  its  author ^s  ^  ech- 
nique.  To  acquire  intimacy  with  the  latter,  carry  out 
the  following  program  faithfully.  On  it  the  average 
student  ought  to  spend  not  less  than  400  hours. 

1.  Transcribe  each  story  three  times. 

2.  Reproduce  it  from  memory  three  times,  as  best  you 
can,  never  looking  back  to  the  original  for  aid.  These 
trials  should  not  be  made  on  successive  days,  but  at  longer 
intervals. 

3.  Invent  a  new  setting  for  the  plot  and  write  a  story, 
adhering  as  closely  as  possible  to  the  style  of  the  original. 
Repeat  this  at  least  three  times.  For  variety,  choose  a 
fresh  setting  at  each  practice. 

4. .  Invent  a  plot  considerably  different  from  the  original 


222  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

and  write  your  story  in  the  model  style.  Repeat  this  at 
least  five  times.  (Note.  For  ordinary  class  work  this 
exercise  must  be  greatly  .shortened.  In  this  case  it  is 
advisable  to  concentrate  on  one  author's  style.  By  all 
means  avoid  a  little  experimenting  with  several  authors. 
This  is  worthless  and  confusing.) 

The  stories  to  be  experimented  with  are: 

1.  Poe — The  Cask  of  Amontillado. 

2.  Maupassant — The  Necklace. 

3.  Stevenson — The  Sire  de  Maletroit's  Door.  (In  New 
Arabian  Nights.) 

4.  Wharton — His  Father's  Son.  (In  Tales  of  Ghosts  and 
Men.) 

5.  0.  Kemy—The  Gift  of  the  Magi.  (In  The  Four 
Million.) 

7.  The  following  is  an  underdeveloped  story.  Discover 
its  theme  (or  other  single  effect).  Then  estimate  which 
dramatic  factor  of  the  plot  is  weakest.  Suggest  improve- 
ments in  it.  Next  criticize  the  angle  of  narration  and,  if 
possible,  improve  it.  Finally  rewrite  the  story  in  not  less 
than  3,500  words. 

Five  hundred, — one  thousand, — three  thousand  dollars 
for  the  head  of  Sarafan!  He  sank  upon  his  doorstep,  the 
paper  slipping  from  his  hand.  Motionless,  yearning,  he 
looked  to  the  west, — always  to  the  west, — and  over  their 
beer  they  would  say: — 

"  Old  Hamlin,  he  waits  for  his  boy. " 

In  just  such  a  twilight  he  had  pleaded  for  her  love, — 
and  when  the  moon  was  high,  she  promised. 

All  the  long  May  day  they  danced  at  their  betrothal, 
and  when  the  evening  came,  she  had  danced  into  the  heart 
of  Pierre,  a  rough  but  dashing  soldier.  The  wise  heads 
nodded : — 

"He  is  handsome". 

The  young  heads  whispered: — 

"She  looks  not  unkindly  on  the  stranger "o 

Hamlin  said  nothing. 


EXERCISES  223 

One  evening  at  parting,  he  held  her  hand  longer  than 
usual: — 

'*It  is  Pierre  you  love", — and  she  answered:— 

"Yes". 

That  night  young  Hamlin,  listless,  stolid,  laid  upon 
the  parson's  table  a  few  thumb-worn  bills: — 

"There  will  be  no  wedding". 

In  the  morning,  Pierre  had  gone  and  with  him  Hamlin's 
love. 

The  years  that  followed  brought  no  word  from  Ham- 
lin's love,  neither  did  he  make  an  effort  to  hear  from  her. 
Sometimes  in  the  hushed  voices  as  he  passed,  he  could 
catch  rumors  of  wretched  poverty,  of  a  brutal  husband, 
and  once  it  seemed  to  him  that  they  spoke  of  her  as  a 
widow.     Hamlin  dreamed  strange  dreams. 

She  was  coming  back, — always  coming  back.  Some- 
times he  trembled  at  her  footstep.  Sometimes  his  tired 
eyes  drew  her  from  the  darkness.  But  always  when  the 
moon  was  high,  he  strained  her  to  his  aching  heart. 

Returning  one  evening,  he  found  upon  his  doorstep  a 
huddled  mass  of  rags,  half  buried  in  snow,  and  beside  it  a 
whimpering  child.  Filled  with  apprehension,  he  turned 
the  body.     It  was  she. 

He  stared  stupidly  at  the  unconscious  face.  Suddenly 
he  seized  her  wrist  and  felt  her  pulse.  Frightened,  he  tore 
away  her  shawl  and  laid  his  ear  above  her  heart.  He  rose 
reassured,  and  carried  her  into  the  house,  the  little  one 
toddling  at  his  heels. 

Beside  the  hearth,  he  piled  up  for  her  a  bed.  He 
gathered  the  rough  twigs  and  built  her  a  fire. 

For  three  miles  he  waded  through  the  snow  to  bring 
back  with  him  the  village  doctor.  With  the  devotion  of 
an  ill-used  cur,  he  watched  beside  her,  and  when  the  moon 
was  high,  she  closed  her  sightless  eyes. 

Three  days  after  there  was  the  funeral,  a  trustee  of  the 
orphanage  came  to  relieve  him  of  the  child.  Hamlin 
kept  the  boy. 

From  this  day,  the  tavern  saw  him  no  more.  All  day 
he  toiled  in  the  fields.  His  nights  he  spent  at  home, 
mending  shoes. 

When  some  father's  heart  would  overflow  with  pride 
in  his  son,   Hamlin   said  nothing.     He   looked   at   the 


224  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

towsled  head  of  his  boy,  and  in  his  eyes  there  glowed  a 
far-off  vision. 

As  soon  as  the  boy  could  understand,  Hamlin  would 
take  out  for  him  the  silver  hoard  that  grew  so  slowly. 
He  would  tell  him  of  the  wonderful  schools  in  town,  of 
the  learning  and  honors  that  would  be  his.  Every  morn- 
ing he  drove  him  five  miles  to  town  that  he  might  have  a 
better  schooling  than  the  humble  village  could  afford,  and 
when,  showered  with  honors,  he  entered  the  university, 
old  Hamlin  sat  at  home  worn,  triumphant,  counting  the 
last  dollar  that  was  needed  to  complete  his  dream 

As  he  passed  through  the  village,  he  could  catch  again 
the  hushed  whispers.  This  time  they  were  speaking  of 
the  boy  and  well  they  might  speak.  If  only — Ah  well, 
perhaps  it  was  a  fancy.  Yet  Hamlin  felt  that  in  his  boy 
there  was  growing  more  and  more  powerful  the  lawless 
spirit  of  his  father.  Twice  he  had  been  caught  in  some 
wild  escapade,  and  was  spared  only  because  of  his  brilliant 
scholarship. 

Time  and  again  he  wrote  for  the  money  that  Hamlin 
sent  him  with  a  trembling  hand, — the  money  he  needed 
for  his  studies — the  money  that  found  its  way  into  some 
pit  of  hell. 

For  months  at  a  time  he  would  absent  himself  from  his 
studies. 

In  his  supposed  senior  year  he  came  home  one  night  to 
stay.  Nervously  Hamlin  questioned  him.  No,  he  had 
met  no  one  in  the  village. 

Hamlin  beseeched  him  to  return.  He  argued,  pleaded, 
threatened.  He  learned  the  whole  crushing  truth.  They 
quarreled.  The  lad  disappeared  and  with  him  the  last 
of  the  silver  hoard. 

Hamlin  laid  his  snowy  head  on  the  empty  box. 

''His  father's  blood, — only  his  father's  blood". 

Still  looking  to  the  west, — always  to  the  west  where  his 
boy  had  gone, — Hamlin  was  startled  from  his  dreaming. 
Some  one  was  stumbling  up  the  garden  path.  Someone 
fell  upon  him  with  a  sob.     ' His  boy'. 

Wild-eyed  he  pointed  to  the  west. 

''There, — there!    They're  coming  for  me" 

"For  you"? 

"I  am  Sarafan". 


EXERCISES  ^  225 

Hamlin  was  motionless.  "Who  knows  that  Hamlin's 
son  is  Sarafan"? 

"Only  you". 

His  hands  closed  upon  the  lad's  throat.  He  dragged 
him  down  into  the  cellar.  They  struggled  fiercely.  Ham- 
lin was  the  stronger.  He  held  him  down  until  he  breathed 
no  more  and  then,  smiling,  he  went  out  to  meet  the  pur- 
suers. 

That  night  when  the  moon  was  high  he  dug  the  grave 
in  a  lonely  thicket,  and  there  he  laid  'His  Boy'. 


PART  II: 
fHE  BUSINESS  OF  THE  SHORT  STORY 


THE  BUSINESS  OF  THE  SHORT  STORY 

Crown  the  heads  of  better  men 

With  lilies  and  with  morning  glories! 
I'm  unworthy  of  a  pen — 
These  are  Bread-and-Butter  stories. 
Shall  I  tell  you  how  I  know? 
Strangers  wrote  and  told  me  so. 

He  who  only  toils  for  fame 
I  pronounce  a  silly  Billy. 
/  can't  dine  upon  a  name, 
Or  look  dressy  in  a  lily. 
And — Oh  shameful  truth  to  utter  I — 
I  wonH  live  on  bread  and  butter. 

Gouvemeur  Morris.     Dedication  of  It. 

The  so-called  practical  advice  purveyed  to  persons  who 
wish  to  make  money  at  fiction  writing  reduces  pretty 
much  to  a  few  cynical  propositions  about  Mammon, 
prejudiced  editors,  catering  to  the  mob,  and  the  ignominy 
of  being  an  unknown  writer.  And  when  it  does  not,  it 
swings  to  the  other  extreme,  as  in  the  case  of  O.  Henry's 
recipe  of  success:  "Write  what  pleases  you.  There  is  no 
second  rule.''  Now,  both  these  views  are  absurd.  The 
affair  is  not  so  simple;  neither  is  it  so  desperate  nor  so 
bright.  It  resembles  every  other  business  in  that  it 
depends  upon  many  independent  circumstances;  over 
many  of  these  the  individual  author  has  absolutely  no 
control,  and  many  others  editors  are  powerless  to  direct. 
Reduced  to  its  simplest  terms,  it  is  a  'problem  of  three 
bodies':  (a)  the  reading  public,  (b)  the  author,  and  (c) 
the  pubhsher.     From  this  triad  there  is  no  escape,  unless 

229 


230  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

the  writer  chooses  to  emulate  the  minstrels  of  old,  wander- 
ing from  house  to  house,  reciting  his  wares,  and  gleaning 
dimes  from  the  pleased  and  kicks  from  the  wroth.  The 
contemporary  variation  of  this  scheme  is  publishing  at 
one's  own  expense;  but  this  is  generally  less  successful 
than  out-and-out  minstrelsy,  for  the  volumes  have  to  be 
given  away  to  friends  and  creditors. 

Probably,  there  are  not  over  ten  men  in  the  world  who 
analyze  this  'problem  of  three  bodies'  with  approximate 
completeness  and  accuracy;  and  these  men  are  the 
shrewd  veterans  of  the  great  publishing  houses.  It  can 
be  outlined  here,  though,  with  sufficient  detail  to  assist 
the  average  story  writer  a  little.  I  shall  not  explain  the 
why  and  wherefore  of  all  the  following  assertions.  Some 
of  them  I  do  not  understand,  and  others  depend  upon  very 
complex,  lengthy  and  difficult  factors  of  social  psychology, 
while  still  others  are  too  obvious. 

1.  There  is  not  one  reading  public,  hut  many.  This 
fact  is  one  of  the  self-evident,  but  many  a  young  writer 
(and  many  another)  ignores  it  and  pays  dearly  for  the 
oversight.  Yet  the  most  casual  inspection  of  magazines 
indicates  it,  and  a  ten-minute  study  of  the  U.  S.  Census 
demonstrates  it.  There  are  some  ninety  and  odd  million 
people  within  our  borders.  Of  this  multitude,  nearly 
seven  out  of  every  ten  live  on  farms  or  in  small  villages. 
Hundreds  of  thousands  of  these  know  only  their  fields 
and  the  hamlet  church  and  the  Saturday  night  gossip 
around  the  crossroads.  Another  hundred  thousand  or 
two  are  shrewd,  prosperous  Americans  of  the  older  type; 
they  have  been  through  high  school,  and  perhaps  through 
the  State  college;  they  read  the  President's  Message  and 
The  Country  Gentleman,  they  study  the  World  Almanac 
winter  evenings,  and  after  bumper  crops  they  send  their 
families  to  Europe,  while  they  stay  home  and  loan  money 
to  river-bottom  farmers  at  fifteen  per  cent.     Then  there 


THE  BUSINESS  OF  THE  SHORT  STORY         231 

is  the  Progressive  Villager,  one  of  the  most  characteristic 
American  types,  who,  from  his  elm-shadowed  cottage, 
judges  the  world  cannily  with  the  assistance  of  the  Cir- 
culating Library  and  the  magazines.  More  than  any 
other  single  class,  he  has  shaped  American  culture;  and, 
though  his  influence  is  swiftly  waning,  it  still  is  a  power 
in  the  land.  Now,  we  might  go  on  naming  intellectual 
types,  working  from  the  back  counties  toward  the  East 
Side  of  Manhattan.  And  we  should  find  hundreds  of 
species,  ranging  from  housewife  to  chorus  girl,  from  old- 
school  Methodist  to  Italian  atheist,  from  neurasthenic 
bank  clerk  to  professional  safe-blower,  from  the  new 
Puritan  of  Southern  California  to  the  anarchist  who  night- 
ly bawls  his  creed  in  the  beery  basements  of  East  Broad- 
way. Some  of  these  classes  live  three  thousand  miles 
apart,  as  far  as  Paris  is  removed  from  Timbuctoo;  and 
the  intellectual  gulf  between  Paris  and  Timbuctoo  is  no 
greater  than  that  which  intervenes  between  such  Ameri- 
cans. 

That  all  these  people  are  interested  in  very  different 
affairs,  is  self-evident.  That  people  read  what  they  are 
interested  in,  is  also  axiomatic.  Therefore,  there  are 
many  reading  publics.  And  this  conclusion  is  richly  con- 
firmed by  each  month's  output  of  literature  and  news- 
papers. There  is  one  public  for  the  New  York  Call,  and 
another  for  the  New  York  Times,  and  a  third  for  the  New 
York  Journal.  Mrs.  Wharton  counts  her  adherents  by 
the  thousand,  and  Robert  W.  Chambers  reckons  his  by 
the  ten  thousand,  while  Laura  Jean  Libbey  scores  her 
multitudes  in  numbers  of  six  figures.  Outside  of  all 
these  hordes  many  millions  live  serenely  indifferent  to 
metropolitan  journals  and  the  Best  Sellers  and  the  muck- 
rakers.  What  they  peruse  is  pretty  much  of  a  mystery 
except  to  the  sales  departments  of  the  large  publishing 
houses;  but  that  they  do  read,  and  that  they  have  peculiar 


232  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

and  very  decided  tastes,  is  well  known  tb  the  book 
trade.  An  interesting  morsel  of  testimony  on  this 
matter  is  offered  in  a  valuable  anonymous  book,  en- 
titled A  Publisher's  Confession.^  The  writer,  who  is 
the  head  of  one  of  our  most  prominent  publishing 
houses,  says : 

But  stranger  than  the  popularity  of  very  popular  novels, 
or  than  the  utter  failure  of  merely  'literary'  novels,  is  the 
moderate  success  of  a  certain  kind  of  commonplace 
stories.  I  know  a  woman  of  domestic  tastes  who  every 
two  years  turns  off  a  quiet  story.  She  has  now  written  a 
dozen  or  more.  They  are  never  advertised.  .  .  The 
'literary'  world  pays  no  heed  to  her.  Her  books  are  not 
even  reviewed  in  the  best  journals.  They  lack  distinction. 
But  every  one  is  sure  to  sell  from  ten  to  fifteen  thousand 
copies.  No  amount  of  advertising,  no  amount  of  noise 
could  increase  the  number  of  readers  to  twenty-five  thou- 
sand ;  and  there  is  no  way  to  prevent  a  sale  of  from  ten  to 
fifteen  thousand  copies.  Why  this  is  so  is  one  of  the  most 
baffling  problems  of  psychology. 

I  must  confess  that  I  find  nothing  baffling  in  the  fixity 
of  such  a  clientele.  There  is  a  definite  number  of  people 
who  like  red  cravats  with  small  black  polka  dots.  There 
is  a  definite  multitude  which  enjoys  slow  music  in  D 
minor  best.  There  is  a  public  that  dotes  on  cantaloupe 
with  pepper  and  salt,  and  another  which  revels  in  canta- 
loupe sugared.  But  what  is  there  strange  in  this?  Take 
any  imaginable  thing  on  earth,  offer  it  to  any  human 
being,  and  he  must  either  like  it,  dislike  it,  or  be  indifferent 
toward  it.  With  only  three  possible  ways  of  behaving, 
it  is  therefore  a  simple  matter  of  arithmetic  to  show  that, 
in  a  group  of,  say,  forty  million  adults,  there  will  be  a 
pretty  definite  number  liking  any  given  object.  And  this 
number  will  remain  nearly  constant  throughout  the  life- 
time  of   the   group,  ^because    adult    tastes    and    appe- 

iDoubleday,  Page,  1905. 


THE  BUSINESS  OF  THE  SHORT  STORY         233 

tites  change  very  slowly.  Thus,  in  each  generation 
there  will  always  be  a  vast  number  of  different  read- 
ing publics;  and  the  writer  who  pleases  one  of  them 
once  can  probably  repeat  the  trick  for  a  number  of 
years. 

2.  The  novel  may  successfully  appeal  to  a  single  reading 
public;  the  short  story  must  appeal  to  many.  Please 
notice  the  wording  of  this  statement  carefully.  It  is 
not  asserted  that  a  novel  should  appeal  to  only  one  class, 
nor  yet  that  a  story  which  does  this  is  devoid  of  genuine 
merit.  The  greatest  novels  certainly  please  scores  of 
classes,  while  some  unmarketable  stories — for  instance, 
the  racier  French  sort — are  excellent  in  every  respect  save 
the  commercial.  (I  am,  of  course,  speaking  only  of 
American  commercial  conditions.)  What  I  do  assert, 
though,  is  that  the  novelist  may  prosper,  may  carry 
his  message  or  impart  his  fun  to  a  very  sharply  de- 
fined group  of  readers;  but  this  is  almost  impossible 
for  a  story  writer  except  insofar  as  he  has  previously 
won  his  group  of  readers  by  writing  novels.  Why 
is  this?  The  origin  of  the  modern  magazine  ex- 
plains it. 

3.  The  magazine  is  supported  chiefly  by  its  advertising 
pages.  The  value  of  these  pages  depends  upon  the  num- 
ber of  readers  who  are  potential  buyers  of  the  advertised 
commodities.  Hence  the  most  successful  magazine  is  the 
one  which  pleases  some  very  large  class,  or,  as  is  usually 
the  case,  many  classes.  Now,  the  short  story  writer 
who  is  not  a  novelist  of  repute  is  almost  wholly  de- 
pendent upon  the  magazine  for  his  current  sales.  He 
cannot  publish  his  tales  in  book  form  unless  most  of  them 
have  appeared  in  periodicals  and  won  applause  there. 
Twenty  years  ago  and  before,  when  the  editing  of  a 
magazine  was  more  an  art  and  a  profession  than  a  busi- 
ness, things  were  quite  different.     An  editor  could  then 


234  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

print  what  he  liked  and  trust  in  the  existence  of  a  few 
thousand  Hke-minded  readers  who  would  buy.  All  his 
competitors  were  doing  the  same  thing;  and  so  they 
were  not  competitors  at  all,  in  the  modem,  sanguinary 
sense.  Furthermore,  all  periodicals  of  those  days  were 
high-priced  and  catered  to  the  upper  classes;  if  not  to  the 
rich,  at  least  to  the  cultured.  And  these  readers  did  not 
scrimp  in  matters  literary;  they  bought  all  magazines  that 
interested  them,  just  as  people  of  the  same  starrp  do 
today.  How  different  with  the  business-ruled  m?^azine 
of  the  twentieth  century!  Not  content  to  re&.ch  the 
easy  chair  of  him  who  of  old  pored  over  LittelVs  Living 
Age  and  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  it  fights  its  way  to  the 
table  of  the  man  who  can  afford  only  one  magazine  a 
month;  to  the  office  of  the  'Tired  Business  Man'  and  the 
weary  housewife's  kitchen;  to  the  seat  of  the  commercial 
traveler  on  a  dull  journey.  The  result  of  this  tremendous 
expansion  of  circulation  may  be  read  off  by  the  most  inex- 
perienced observer.  The  popular  magazine  shuns  every 
topic  which  deviates  much  from  the  tastes  of  the  supposed 
majority  of  the  class  or  classes  to  viiich  it  appeals.  (I 
emphasize  the  participle,  please  not^!)  And  this  means 
that,  as  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells  recently  jhrased  it,  'Hhe  editor 
of  the  magazine  that  strives  to  please  a  million  families  has 
to  deaden  down  the  conception  of  what  a  short  story  might 
be  to  the  imaginative  limitation  of  the  common  reader."* 
All  material  which  can  be  appreciated  only  by  one  who 
has  been  to  Europe,  or  has  studied  chemistry,  or  has 
perused  the  vital  statistics  of  the  Mississippi  Valley,  or 

1  In  the  introduction  to  his  collection  of  short  stories  entitled 
The  Country  of  the  Blind  (Nelson,  1912).  The  entire  diatribe  is 
well  worth  reading,  n  spite  of  some  fanciful  theories  in  it  (from  which 
Wells  is  temperamentally  unable  to  abstain).  It  gives  a  fairly 
accurate  picture  of  the  plight  of  story  writers  in  Great  Britain 
today  and  voices  a  wholesome  protest  against  the  absurd  formalism 
which  sways  many  critics,  readers  and  editors. 


THE  BUSINESS  OF  THE  SHORT  STORY         235 

has  been  sentenced  to  the  gallows,  or  has  compared  the 
texts  of  Macbeth,  or  has  analyzed  the  tariff  schedule,  or 
has  experienced  any  other  thing  which  the  average  man 
has  not, — all  such  material  is  forbidden  to  the  writer  of 
tales.  Furthermore,  all  material  which  can  be  appreciated 
only  by  a  person  of  exceptional  mental  powers,  or  with  an 
extraordinary  sense  of  humor,  or  with  prodigious  subtlety 
is  even  more  strictly  taboo.  And  the  reason  for  the  prohi- 
bition is  always  the  same.  It  is  not  because  the  topics 
which  exceptional  people  understand  are  intricate  or 
audacious  ot  radical  or  improper;  it  is  simply  because  the 
largest  reading  public  does  not  grasp  them  with  the  sym- 
pathy of  insight. 

4.  Because  of  this,  three  types  of  short  stories'  are 
unsuited  to  the  average  magazine:  satire,  allegory,  and 
the  'fate  drama'.  They  are  but  rarely  accepted  and 
then  for  some  special  reason  which  does  not  impair  our 
general  rule.  Satire  is  either  incomprehensible  or  weak 
to  many  intelligent  people.  Its  appreciation  demands 
an  alertness  of  imagination  considerably  above  the 
average.  Occasionally  a  newspaper  of  the  cultured 
classes,  like  The  New  York  Evening  Post  or  The  Boston 
Transcript,  cannot  resist  the  temptation  to  wax  ironical 
over  some  topic  of  the  hour;  and  the  result  is  ever  the 
same;  a  sackful  of  protesting  letters  pours  in  from  indig- 
nant subscribers  who  have  taken  the  editorial  words  at 
face  value.  Now,  it  is  just  this  element  of  irony  in  all 
spicy  satire  that  militates  against  the  latter.  To  make 
satire  first-class,  you  must  flavor  it  strongly  with  irony; 
but  if  you  do,  then  you  narrow  your  audience,  ad- 
mitting only  those  who  are  so  familiar  with  the  object 
of  your  attack  that  they  can  read  it  off  through  the  ironic 
veil  of  double  meanings. 

As  for  the  unpopularity  of  allegory,  its  difficulty  is,  at 
bottom,  that  of  satire.     Allegory,  too,  is  saying  one  thing 


236  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

and  meaning  another.  And  genuine  intellectual  skill 
is  all  too  frequently  required  in  the  perceiving  and  en- 
joying of  its  twin  significances.  At  best,  allegory  is  not 
easy  reading  for  the  average  man;  and  when  it  is  fashioned 
in  profound  cogitation,  it  is  little  more  than  a  riddle. 
I  venture  to  say  that  not  more  than  one  magazine  reader 
in  four  could  understand  all  of  the  allegory  in  van  Dyke's 
Half-Told  Tales,  which  Scrihner^s  had  the  courage  to 
publish  for  its  select  clientele.  And  this  casts  no  reflec- 
tion upon  reader  or  author.  The  former  may  be  very 
intelligent  in  his  own  way  and  well  educated,  too, 
and  yet  lack  that  peculiar  nimbleness  which  allegory 
calls  for.  To  lack  it  is  no  more  disgraceful  than  to 
lack  the  power  of  following  the  texture  of  a  Bach 
fugue.  It  is  as  much  an  endowment  as  the  color  of 
one's  eyes. 

As  for  the  'fate  drama',  the  term  itself  requires  defini- 
tion. I  refer  to  the  opposite  of  the  'uplift  story', 
after  which  so  many  editors  are  sighing.  It  is  the  story 
which  depicts  man  as  the  victim  of  circumstance  or 
— what  is  really  the  same  thing — as  the  victim  of  some 
uncontrollable  trait  in  himself.  Maupassant's  The  Piece 
of  String,  perfect  though  it  is  as  a  fulfilment  of  its  own 
artistic  purpose,  presents  such  a  picture, — Maitre  Hauche- 
corne  killed  by  his  own  exceeding  thrift,  by  his  pride, 
and  by  the  mere  chance  of  being  observed  picking  up 
something;  hence  the  story  would  probably  have  been 
rejected  by  most  American  magazines,  though  not  by  all. 
And  why?  Simply  because  it  is  not  pleasant  reading. 
Most  men  and  women  are  a  little  depressed  by  the  thought 
that  they  are  not  the  captains  of  their  souls;  and  they  do 
not  wish  to  pay  fifteen  cents,  still  less  thirty-five,  for  the 
depression.  They  get  more  than  enough  of  it  gratis, 
every  day,     They  read  fiction,  especially  magazine  fiction, 


THE  BUSINESS  OF  THE  SHORT  STORY         237 

either  for  pure  pleasure  or  else  for  agreeable  informal 
instruction. 

Here  is  a  fate  drama  which  illustrates  all  the  unpopular 
features  of  its  species.  A  student's  story,  written  with 
excellent  style  and  technique,  has  to  do  with  the  effect 
which  the  religious  services  in  a  great  cathedral  exert 
upon  a  glass  worker  who  is  engaged  in  repairing  some  of 
the  windows.  The  glass  worker  is  a  rabid  atheist,  bent 
upon  converting  everybody  to  his  own  views.  The  action 
begins  with  a  scene  in  which  he  is  mocking  the  religion's 
mummery  which  he  has  just  been  witnessing,  and  proving 
that  those  who  respect  this  are  fools.  Soon  after,  his 
little  boy  is  injured  by  an  automobile.  A  clergyman 
comes  to  console  him  and  the  glazier  turns  him  away  with 
wrath.  The  boy  dies  and  ''at  the  funeral,  out  of  the  dark- 
ness and  bitterness  of  his  heart,  Joe  spoke  his  hopelessness 
to  the  little  group  of  mourners  gathered  in  his  parlor." 
Back  to  his  work  in  the  cathedral  he  goes,  still  reviling 
the  chanting  priests  far  below  his  scaffold  and  sneering 
at  the  superstitious  old  women  who  go  through  the  motions 
of  worship. 


As  the  days  passed,  working  at  his  solitary  task,  he 
began  to  get  a  certain  companionship  from  the  regular 
recurrence  of  the  services.  The  solemn  peal  of  the  organ 
and  the  measured  cadence  of  the  incantations,  even  the 
hushed  restlessness  of  the  changing  congregations,  com- 
bined to  soothe  his  wounded  spirit  which  was  sore  op- 
pressed in  those  days  while  little  Bub's  death  was  so  new. 
Once  he  caught  himself  envying  those  hundreds  of  people 
whose  faith  could  pass  beyond  the  barriers  of  the  grave. 
For  that  he  took  himself  to  task.  Too  well  he  knew  they 
were  hypocrites. 

But  as  the  days  went  by  he  shook  off  less  easily  the 
awesome  effects  of  the  services.  The  music  began  to 
exert  its  hypnotic  influence.  More  and  more,  a  sense  of 
the  great  reahty  on  whom  he  might  call  pressed  upon  him, 


238  SHORT   STORY  WRITING 

"Play  ball"!  he  impatiently  exclaimed  aloud,  ''you're 
measuring  that  vault.    That's  what  you  are  doing". 

For  a  moment  he  had  thought  himself  part  of  that  wor- 
shipful assemblage,  standing  with  bowed  head  above. 
By  a  strong  effort  of  will  he  tried  to  bend  his  mind  to  the 
minutia  of  his  task,  but  like  a  mighty  flood  the  irresist- 
ible influence  of  the  place  surged  upon  him.  His  spirit 
was  awed  with  a  sense  of  invisible  power  and  sublimity. 
He  felt  the  actual  presence  of  the  spirit  of  the  Almighty. 
The  sound  of  the  chanting  ceased,  and  the  priest's  voice 
was  raised  in  suppHcation.  Moved  by  an  irresistible 
impulse,  Joe  Barry  sank  to  his  knees,  his  lips  moving  in 
prayer. 

Some  editors  would  reject  this  story  simply  because  it 
deals  with  a  religious  theme,  which  is  now-a-days  con- 
sidered not  only  bad  taste  but  also  bad  policy.  The  more 
serious  objection  to  it,  however,  is  not  the  theme  but  the 
moral,  which  is  that  the  religious  influence  is  hypnotism 
by  sights  and  sounds  and  ancient  mummeries,  and  that 
they  are  strong  enough  to  vanquish  a  man's  deepest  con- 
victions. The  reader  does  not  have  to  be  an  unbeliever 
in  order  to  feel  the  depressing  effects  of  this  moral. 
Whether  Joe  Barry's  philosophy  was  true  or  false,  cer- 
tainly it  was  sincere ;  and  what  is  more  discouraging  than 
to  see  a  genuine  persuasion  defeated  by  mere  music  and 
incense  and  fancies? 

5.  This  last  fact  is  one  on  which  we  must  dwell  at  once, 
so  persistently  is  it  ignored  or  underestimated  or — worse 
yet — misconstrued.  Authors  who  have  not  yet  caught 
their  bearings  are  wont  to  berate  now  the  editor  and 
now  the  pubHc  for  a  singular  perverse  unwilHngness  to 
take  'serious  stories'.  By  a  'serious  story'  they  mean 
the  'fate  drama',  which,  by  the  way,  is  much  loved  and 
attempted  by  beginners.  They  declare,  in  their  invective, 
that  the  editor  and  his  public  'don't  know  real  art  when 
they  see  it'.     Unfortunately,  some  excellent  literary  critics 


THE  BUSINESS  OF  THE  SHORT  STORY         239 

and  other  authorities  encourage  this  belief  by  sneering  at 
the  low  grade  of  current  short  fiction.  Now,  such  a  ver- 
dict carries  well  in  a  class  room  of  sophomores ;  also,  it  is  a 
balm  to  the  proprietors  of  rejected  MSS.  But  it  is 
founded  upon  a  fatal  misconception  and  upon  false  stand- 
ards. It  is  not  merely  perfectionism;  it  is  bad  arith- 
metic. The  perfectionism  consists  in  restricting  the 
name  of  art  to  half  a  dozen  masterpieces  and  condemning 
as  'mere  journalism'  everything  inferior  to  They  and 
A  Coward  and  Markheim.  Not  long  ago  I  heard  a  pro- 
fessor of  English  Literature  pour  scorn  upon  a  distant 
colleague  who  lectured  to  undergraduates  on  Mrs. 
Wharton,  0.  Henry,  and  Jack  London.  There  are,  said 
the  scorner,  only  six  story  writers  in  the  world  worthy  of 
academic  attention.  Now,  here  we  see  perfectionism  in 
its  most  preposterous  hypertrophy.  The  average  per- 
fectionist is  a  shade  more  liberal;  and  yet  his  error  is 
great.  In  demanding  that  the  monthly  magazine  accept 
only  what  measures  up  to  the  very  best,  he  not  only  sets 
an  impossible  standard,  but  also  misunderstands  the 
function  of  magazines.  This  function  is  not  the  pub- 
lishing of  masterpieces;  it  is  the  disseminating  of  in- 
structive, critical,  and  entertaining  articles  and  fiction. 
People  want  such,  and  they  want  them  much  more  than 
they  want  masterpieces.  They  want  life  and  the  affairs 
of  life  exhibited  to  them  in  many  phases  and  moods  and 
bearings;  and  these  infinitely  exceed  art  in  their  variety 
and  quality  of  form  and  content. 

Art,  in  the  perfectionist's  meaning  of  the  word,  is  only 
one  of  life's  many  pleasures  and  tonics.  It  is  less  impor- 
tant than  food,  less  true  than  school-books,  less  influential 
than  the  weather,  less  progressive  than  chemistry,  less 
moral  than  common  sense,  less  human  than  politics, 
and  less  refreshing  than  a  dip  in  the  surf.  And  it  always 
will  be,  so  long  as  people  remain  sane.     Hence  the  artist 


240  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

may  not  arrogate  to  himself  the  right  of  telling  people 
what  they  should  read.  People  will  read  what  they  like 
to  read;  and,  if  healthy,  they  will  be  literary  pluralists, — 
to  borrow  the  speech  of  philosophy  for  a  moment.  One 
day  Smith  will  hmiger  for  Mark  Twain,  while  Jones 
craves  Bunyan.  The  next  morning  Smith  digs  into  the 
history  of  Standard  Oil,  and  Jones  samples  Landor  with 
gusto.  And  thus  appetite  shifts  to  the  year's  end. 
Now  you  may  call  it  fickleness  or  shallowness,  if  you 
choose;  and  you  may  extol  the  truly  artistic  reader  who 
would  be  content  to  be  cast  away  upon  a  desert  island 
with  nothing  but  Paradise  Lost  and  Shakespeare.  But  the 
truth  remains  that  real  life,  in  all  its  vigor  and  contempt 
of  rigid  form,  is  a  perpetual  hunt  after  new  things.  Little 
does  it  care  what  it  finds,  if  only  the  find  be  novel,  agree- 
able, or  instructive.  It  tastes,  sucks  the  sweet,  takes 
on  strength  from  the  day's  kill,  and  moves  on  after 
quarries  fresh  and  flavors  strange.  Perhaps  this  habit 
is  but  the  subtlest  form  of  the  instinct  of  self-preser- 
vation; it  may  be  the  effort  to  get  one's  bearings  toward 
all  things  and  thus  to  learn  how  to  cope  with  the  latter. 
Be  that  as  it  may;  the  fact  itself  looms  mountain-like, 
in  the  realm  of  books  and  papers  no  less  than  every- 
where else.  And,  whether  he  likes  it  or  not,  the  story  writer 
must  reckon  with  a  public  that  is  forever  demanding  new 
manners  and  many  of  them,  new  tales  and  strange  ways 
of  telling  them.  It  is  a  public  which  agrees  whole- 
heartedly with  Bacon  that  ''there  is  no  excellent  beauty 
that  hath  not  some  strangeness  in  the  proportion"; 
and  it  exceeds  Bacon  in  its  belief  that  strangeness,  whether 
of  form  or  of  content,  is  the  better  half  of  art.^ 

1  These  remarks  seem  to  contradict  the  one  made  a  moment  ago, 
that  people's  tastes  are  fixed.  But  there  is  no  conflict  here.  An 
adult's  likes  and  dislikes  are  fixed  pretty  definitely  with  reference  to 
each  type  of  object  artistic  or  othervnse.     But  this  does  not  mean  that 


THE  BUSINESS  OF  THE  SHORT  STORY         241 

Here,  then,  is  the  editor's  impregnable  defense  against 
those  authors  who  curse  him  for  shipping  back  to  them 
their  stories  which  are  as  swift  as  Maupassant's,  as 
analytical  as  James',  and  as  pyrotechnic  as  Poe's,  and 
yet  unacceptable.  It  is  his  defense  against  the  critics 
who  damn  him  for  printing  mere  anecdotes,  plotless 
character  sketches,  smartly  shallow  dialogues,  clownish 
humor,  and  news  items  disguised  as  fiction.  He  may 
always  say:  "Indict  me,  but  first  indict  life  itself." 
And  to  that  there  is  no  answer. 

6.  Another  aspect  of  the  'serious  story'  must  be  con- 
sidered. People  say  that  current  fiction  is  shallow  and 
empty  of  ideas;  and  so  it  falls  short  of  being  fine  art, 
for  fine  art  always  gives  us  something  to  think  about. 
Now,  as  a  bald  statement  of  contemporary  fact,  this  is 
more  true  than  false;  but,  as  a  criticism  of  the  magazine 
short  story,  it  is  unsound.  For,  in  the  field  of  magazine 
literature,  there  are  many  specialized  forms,  each  striving 
to  convey  a  distinct  type  of  information  or  effect;  and 
the  short  story,  which  is  one  of  these  forms,  specializes  in 
entertaining,  not  in  conveying  ideas.  Hence,  it  is  only 
incidentally  that  a  story  with  an  idea  is  printed.  This 
happens,  not  because  authors  cannot  produce  such  fiction, 
but  only  because  editors  elect  to  separate  fact  from 
fiction  more  sharply  than  ever.^     And  the  editors  do  this 

the  man  unswervingly  pursues  some  one  thng  which  he  happens  to 
enjoy.  It  does  not  mean  that  his  attention  is  directed  forever  to 
it  and  to  nothing  else.  He  may  love  his  red  cravat  with  black  polka 
dots,  but  this  does  not  prevent  him  from  worshipping  Maeterlinck. 
In  other  words,  every  person  has  a  large  number  of  tastes,  each  of 
which  is  directed  toward  its  own  peculiar  material;  and,  while  each 
taste  may  be  changeless,  the  person  may  shift  frequently  from  one  to 
another.  This  is  just  what  happens  in  everyday  life,  and  most 
conspicuously  in  reading. 

^  One  apparent  exception  to  this  rule  appears  in  the  editorial 
policy  of  the  Saturday  Eveming  Post,  which  pubhshes  many  news 


^ 


242  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

because  the  whole  world  is  doing  it.  It  is  one  minor 
feature  of  that  specialization  which  is  characteristic  of 
twentieth  century  life.  It  is  also  a  symptom  of  advancing 
intelligence.  The  artist  faces  the  very  same  predicament 
which  the  physician,  the  manufacturer,  the  attorney, 
and  the  scientist  confront.  Like  them,  he  can  achieve 
most  by  attempting  least;  by  concentrating  upon  some 
one  theme,  upon  some  single  dramatic  pattern,  upon  some 
set  of  characters,  he  can  acquire  a  familiarity  with  their 
possible  effects  and  an  ease  in  producing  these  which  will 
enable  him  to  write  more  stories  and  better  stories.  This 
is  the  policy  of  most  contemporary  story  writers.  It  is, 
however,  the  least  profound  aspect  of  literary  specializa- 
tion. The  more  momentous  one  we  discern  in  the  con- 
spicuous tendency  of  these  same  writers  to  leave  preaching 
to  preachers,  fine  metaphor  to  the  poets,  statistics  to  the 
sociologist,  and  generally  all  matter-of-fact  argument  and 
all  serious  philosophizing  to  essayists.  We  observe  it  in 
their  effort  to  entertain,  to  be  dramatic,  to  romance 
freely.  Nine  out  of  every  ten  stories  today  have  no 
message,  for  they  are  not  messengers;  they  are  enter- 
tainers. If  you  wish  a  message,  go  to  the  specialists  in 
messages;  go  to  the  writers  of  serious  articles. 

Were  we  indulging  ourselves  in  a  critique  of  the 
age,  we  might  linger  long  over  the  question  whether 
this  extreme  division  of  literary  labor  makes  for  the 
good  in  the  long  run.  And  we  should  come  to  the  con- 
clusion that,  while  it  greatly  improves  middle-grade 
fiction,  it  stifles  the  highest.  The  reasons  for  this  view 
cannot  be  here  presented,  inasmuch  as  we  are  concerned 
with  the  commercial  problem  only.  It  will  perhaps  suffice 
to   hint   that   the   fundamental   hindrance   which   com- 

articles  and  essays  on  social  problems  in  the  form  of  stories.  But 
in  its  genuine  fiction  this  periodical  follows  the  modern  custom 
quite  strictly,  serving  up  only  entertainment  pure  and  simple. 


THE  BUSINESS  OF  THE  SHORT  STORY         243 

mercialized  story  writing  raises  is  the  rapidity  of  work  and 
bulk  of  material  required.  Stories  with  messages, 
stories  with  big  ideas  cannot  be  ground  out  by  recipe, 
nor  yet  in  bulk.  No  amount  of  technical  skill  calls  them 
into  being;  though  of  course  when  the  idea  comes,  such 
proficiency  enormously  hastens  its  consummation.  The 
big  idea  comes  in  its  own  season;  to  some  persons  often,  to 
others  but  once  in  a  lifetime,  and  to  most  of  us  never. 
Upon  its  arrival  no  man  can  reckon,  and  he  who  hopes  to 
earn  his  bread  by  it  hopes  foolishly.  The  wish  is  contrary 
to  human  nature,  and  the  career  of  almost  every  literary 
genius  bears  pathetic  witness  to  the  fact.  Hawthorne, 
in  his  entire  life,  had  possibly  ten  big  ideas  for  stories. 
Poe  had  about  the  same  number.  Stevenson  had  not 
more  than  four  (some  critics  might  say  only  two).  And 
most  excellent  authors  of  today  have  not  come  upon  as 
many.  All  of  which  goes  to  prove  that,  in  the  business 
of  story  writing,  the  big  idea  is  not  worth  figuring  over. 
If  it  comes,  it  comes;  and  if  it  doesn't,  it  doesn't.  As  in 
every  other  commercial  enterprise,  so  here;  the  worker  \/ 
gains  most  hy  raising  the  average  quality  and  the  gross  r 
quantity  of  his  output. 

This  brings  us  to  an  observation  which  must  have  im- 
pressed everybody  who  has  compared  the  magazines 
of  today  with  those  of  twenty-five  years  ago.  Specializa- 
tion and  increased  commercialization  have  not  ap- 
preciably increased  the  number  of  top-notch  stories,  but 
they  have  enormously  increased  the  multitude  of  good,  \  j  / 
well  constructed,  entertaining,  psychologically  true  stories.  11 
Let  the  student  consult  the  files  of  French,  English,  and 
American  magazines  of  1880  and  earlier,  and  contrast 
them  with  current  periodicals  of  the  same  type.  He  will 
discover  story  after  story  in  the  former  which  even 
Lippincotfs  and  Ainslee^s  would  now  reject  with  loathing. 
The  improvement  is  astounding. 


244  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

7.  On  the  side  of  technique,  specialization  is  not  new) 
certainly  Poe  and  Maupassant  concentrated  narrowly  and 
developed  to  the  utmost  the  possibilities  of  a  few  story 
types.  But  on  the  side  of  story-telling,  the  intenser  way 
of  doing  things  in  a  product  of  recent  years.  It  dates 
from  the  rise  of  the  fifteen-cent  magazines.  An  enter- 
taining article  might  be  written  on  the  business  devices 
now  employed  by  professional  short  story  writers;  the 
card  catalogue,  the  'follow-up  system'  whereby  one  story 
which  has  pleased  a  public  is  announced  as  the  first  of  a 

J  series;  the  news  clipping  bureau,  through  which  the 
\^l    specialist  in  high  society  stories  receives  raw  material 

I  and  the  specialist  in  detective  tales  receives  his  matter, 
finished  except  in  its  dramatic  form;  and  so  on.  But  it 
is  not  important  to  instruct  the  learner  in  all  these  tricks 
of  the  trade.  It  is  enough  to  disabuse  him  of  the  notion 
that  he  may  achieve  success  by  sitting  at  his  midnight 
desk  and  thinking  and  writing  as  the  spirit  moves. 
True,  some  admirable  fancies  are  thus  coaxed  into 
existence;  but  we  are  concerned  here,  not  with  the  oc- 
casional happy  idea  but  with  the  steady  output,  which 
alone  makes  story  writing  a  profession  and  profitable. 
Nine  stories  out  of  every  ten  are  suggested,  in  one  manner 
or  in  another,  by  real  episodes;  and  the  variety  of  real 
episodes  in  any  field  or  of  any  flavor  is  immeasurably 
richer  than  the  range  of  any  one  man's  fancy.  These 
two  indisputable  facts  set  the  first  rule  of  specialization, 

,  which  is  this:  Get  in  touch  with  some  phase  of  life;  become 
1  intimate  with  something  that  is  going  on  in  the  world. 
They  also  shape  the  second  rule,  which  is  this:  Study 
one  and  only  one  emotional  quality  of  your  chosen  phase  of 
life,  for  a  long  time.  ^  Master  its  dramatic  texture.  If, 
for  example,  you  wish  to  find  stories  in  the  high  cost  of 
living,  look  only  to  the  comic  aspect  of  it,  or  only  to  the 
grim  tragedy  of  it,  or  only  to  the  high  adventure  of  it. 


THE  BUSINESS  OF  THE  SHORT  STORY         245 

The  facts  have  all  these  sides  and  as  many  more  as  an 
apple.  Their  artistic  quality  shines  forth  only  insofar  as 
each  feature  is  isolated  and  exhibited  by  itself.  And  the 
writer  can  isolate  them  most  artistically  who  has  long 
studied  them  in  isolation. 

How  one  shall  go  to  work  in  detail  depends  upon  the 
topic  selected  and  upon  the  emotional  tone.  It  depends 
too  upon  the  mental  habits  of  the  individual  writer; 
where  one  might  systematize  to  a  nicety,  another  might 
blunder  along  with  the  sure  blindness  of  instinct.  It  is 
therefore  idle  to  recommend  the  scrap-book,  the  card 
index,  the  press  bureau,  and  the  slumming  expedition 
to  all  prospective  writers.  We  may,  however,  insist  upon 
the  broad  principle  that  each  learner  should  aim  to  order  \ 
his  work  so  as  to  produce  the  largest  possible  number  of  i/ 
fairly  good  stories  about  his  special  subject.  For  it  is  by 
much  writing  that  the  power  of  good  writing  grows  most 
swiftly.  The  most  pernicious  habit  is  the  imitation  of 
Flaubert;  the  day-long  search  for  the  perfect  word,  the 
month-long  wait  for  an  ingenious  turn  of  the  plot.  In 
the  long  run,  the  greater  gain  comes  to  the  man  who 
masters,  not  the  minutiiB  of  expression,  but  the  nature 
of  things  written  about;  and  to  the  man  who  is  not  afraid 
to  produce  a  score  of  mediocre  works,  while  on  the  way 
to  finer  achievement.  The  advance  is  greater,  both 
commercially  and  artistically.  The  lower  grade  of 
fiction  produced  in  the  course  of  practice  generally  finds 
a  market,  albeit  a  cheap  one;  and  thus,  as  we  have  else- 
where said,  the  learner's  education  pays  for  itself.  On 
the  other  hand,  heavy  production  of  carefully  worked 
out  second  and  third  rate  stories  indubitably  hastens 
the  writer  toward  the  high  goal  of  every  artist;  namely 
toward  that  degree  of  proficiency  at  which  technical  manipu- 
lations become  habits.  The  first  moment  of  genuine 
artistry  arrives  when  the  writer  begins  to  use,  without 


246  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

thinking  of  them,  all  the  cautions  and  principles  which 
we  have  been  discussing  in  this  book.i  Now,  nothing 
lifts  one  so  speedily  to  this  pitch  of  skill  as  sheer  quantity 
of  drill — intelligent  drill,  of  course,  and  not  mere  dull 
repetition  of  rules.  The  facility  with  which  newspaper 
reporters  turn  to  fiction  writing  is  due  in  no  shght  measure 
to  the  steadiness  and  magnitude  of  their  narrative  prac- 
tice. The  number  of  fictional  performances  which  some 
of  them  turn  out  annually  proves  that  they  have  learned 
to  compose  and  narrate  plots  in  much  the  same  way  that 
a  person  frames  ordinary  conversational  sentences. 
And  this  is  as  it  should  be. 

8.  In  connection  with  incessant  exercise,  there  is  one 
task  which  surprisingly  few  beginners  discharge,  and 
that  is  imaginative  ex'periinenting.  There  is  a  superstition 
abroad  that  first  thoughts  are  best,  and  that  therefore 
one  should  dash  off  a  story  idea  just  as  it  flashes  upon  one. 
And,  as  a  corollary,  the  only  way  to  get  good  ideas  is  to 
sit  back  and  wait  for  them  to  bob  up.  This  is  a  very 
easy  and  pleasant  fashion,  but  alas!  highly  unprofitable; 
and  it  soon  brings  its  victim  to  a  state  of  comatose  laziness 
out  of  which  nothing  short  of  starvation  will  goad  him. 
It  is,  in  unfamiliar  guise,  the  classic  sin  of  waiting  for 
something  to  turn  up. 

I  have  watched  several  hundred  writers  (of  all  degrees 
of  skill);  and,  with  very  few  exceptions,  the  successful 
experiment  no  less  thoroughly  than  the  chemist  does, 
while  the  most  dismal  failures  are  nearly  all  incurable 
j&rst-thought  writers. 

1  A  few  fortunates  early  acquire  this  ease  without  orderly  help. 
To  them  technical  instruction  seems  futile.  They  say  they  cannot 
think  of  the  thousand  and  one  precepts,  nor  do  they  have  to.  This 
is  true.  Technique  is  only  a  means  to  establishing  habits  of  be- 
havior. Once  the  latter  are  in  full  swing,  thought  of  the  mechanism 
drops  out. 


THE  BUSINESS  OF  THE  SHORT  STORY         247 

Now,  what  is  imaginative  experimenting?  Well,  it 
consists  in  the  deliberate  manufacture  of  many  com- 
binations of  characters  and  situations,  in  various  orders 
and  with  various  dramatic  movements.  Of  the  many 
resulting  plots,  usually  the  two  or  three  best  will  alone 
prove  worthy  of  writing;  the  rest  go  into  the  waste 
basket.  Roughly  speaking,  there  are  two  types  of  com- 
bination. First,  you  may  invent  a  situation  and  then, 
keeping  it  unaltered,  put  different  people  into  it  and  com- 
pare their  behavior.  Or,  secondly,  you  may  begin  with 
a  definite  person — or  with  a  character  trait — and  you 
may  try  it  out  in  many  situations,  seeking  that  one 
which  brings  out  most  vividly  the  chosen  quality  of 
human  nature.  (Stevenson,  it  will  be  recalled,  suggests 
in  a  different  connection  a  third  method,  that  of  choosing 
an  environment  and  fitting  into  it  persons  and  events 
which  harmonize  with  its  own  peculiar  emotional  tone. 
But,  for  reasons  elsewhere  discussed,  this  type  of  story  is 
so  rare  and  difficult  that  we  may  here  ignore  the  experi- 
menting it  calls  for.) 

Not  until  you  have  gone  through  these  operations 
several  times,  will  you  realize  how  prodigious  is  the  host 
of  widely  differing  stories  which  lurks  potentially  in  a 
single  character  or  in  one  situation.  And  after  you  have 
experimented  much,  you  will  perhaps  turn  the  method 
to  profit,  by  finding  a  character  and  a  small  field  of 
situations  which  yield  a  dozen,  or  even  a  score  of  stories. 
This  is  the  richest  of  all  finds.  For  each  story  in  such  a 
series  helps  to  sell  the  next,  and — what  is  still  more 
valuable — the  collection  will  be  accepted  more  eagerly 
for  publication  in  book  form  than  a  miscellany  will. 
Almost  every  prominent  professional  writer  of  brief 
fiction  today  is  producing  such  series;  there  is  scarcely 
a  magazine  that  is  not  always  seeking  them;  and  there 
are  few  fiction  publishers  who  are  not  making  favorable 


248  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

offers  for  the  book  rights.  Thus  the  stories  sell  twice, 
bringing  double  profit;  they  associate  the  author^s  name 
with  a  familiar  character  or  theme  and  thereby  add  to  his 
reputation;  and,  through  the  imaginative  experimenting 
they  force  him  to,  they  ripen  his  technical  skill  wonder- 
fully. 

We  must  not  shut  our  eyes,  though,  to  the  dangers  of 
such  specialization  and  its  imaginative  experimenting. 
They  always  tempt  the  writer  to  become  mechanical, 
to  overwork  certain  technical  tricks  which  he  happens 
to  hit  off  peculiarly  well,  and  soon  to  reduce  his  once  live 
characters  to  puppets.  The  more  successful  he  is  with  a 
series,  the  stronger  this  temptation  grows,  for  publishers 
then  urge  him  to  grind  out  'more  of  the  same  stuff* 
and  pay  him  in  advance  for  stories  yet  unconceived. 
Now,  to  write  conscientiously  and  with  full  vigor,  after 
one  has  spent  all  the  money  the  story  brings,  requires  rare 
moral  fibre,  which  literary  folk  do  not  possess  more 
commonly  than  ordinary  mortals.  Were  it  not  needless 
cruelty,  we  might  name  a  dozen  authors  who,  writing 
under  contract  with  advance  payments,  have  given  their 
editors  stuff  beneath  contempt.  And,  in  a  few  instances, 
they  have,  except  in  the  narrowest  legal  sense,  swindled 
the  magazine. 

Theoretically,  two  preventives  suggest  themselves: 
the  abolition  of  the  contract  system,  or  at  least  of  advance 
payments  determined  prior  to  inspection  of  MSS.; 
or,  if  not  this,  then  a  stricter  conscience  in  authors. 
But  both  schemes,  I  fear,  will  long  remain  in  the  realm 
of  pure  ideas.  So  long  as  publishers  compete  among 
themselves,  each  will  do  his  best  to  outbid  all  rivals  in 
the  quest  of  stories;  and  so  long  as  authors  compete,  for 
bread-and-butter's  sake,  they  are  going  to  accept  the 
highest  bid. 

9.  There  remains  one  practical  question:  what  are  the 


THE   BUSINESS  OF  THE   SHORT   STORY         249 

story  writer's  prospects?  The  answer  is  hard;  for,  when 
all  is  said  and  done,  the  chief  factors  of  success  and  failure 
are  the  individual  and  his  opportunity,  both  of  which  defy 
rules  and  calculation.  There  are  fashions  in  fiction, 
as  everybody  knows;  and  they  are  sometimes  as  capricious 
as  the  fashions  in  women's  rigging.  The  last  decade  has 
seen  the  story  of  the  stupid  life  (miscalled  realistic  fiction) 
give  way  to  half  a  dozen  more  thrilling  types,  such  as  the 
high-life  story,  the  muck-raking  story,  the  whimsical 
story  of  every-day  life,  and  even  the  story  of  high  ad- 
venture (which  Stevenson  revived  with  such  exquisite, 
even  too  exquisite,  touch  and  which  today  Jeffry  Farnol 
and  others  are  shabbily  counterfeiting).  Now,  over 
these  fluctuations  of  manner  and  stuff,  only  the  excep- 
tionally powerful  and  prolific  author  exercises  appreciable 
influence.  Public  taste,  a  very  vague  thing  but  as  real 
as  it  is  vague,  controls  them ;  and  it  is  controlled  by  a  host 
of  shifting  circumstances,  by  new  discoveries,  by  the 
deeds  and  preachings  of  dominant  personalities,  by 
political  affairs,  by  social  unrest,  and  everything  else  that 
goes  to  make  up  life  in  its  full  reality. 

In  estimating  the  chances  of  an  author  with  average 
endowments,  we  must  therefore  reckon  with  the  proba- 
bility of  his  being  more  or  less  out  of  key  with  the  favorite 
mood  of  the  hour.  There  is  ever  the  danger  that,  in  a 
generation  which  revels  in  slaughter  and  red  glory  and 
desperate  hazards,  he  may  be  sighing  to  write  of  simple 
country  folk  or  tea-table  comedies.  And  yet  this  perilous 
coincidence  is  not  fatal.  For,  as  we  have  seen,  there  is 
not  one  reading  public,  but  many;  and  the  demand  for 
nearly  all  types  of  stories  is  approximately  constant. 
The  change  of  fashions  affects  only  the  relative  cash 
value  of  them.  What  the  hour  approves  is  worth  from 
two  cents  a  word  upward  (there  being  no  maximum). 
The  untimely  story,  however  beautiful,  brings  newspaper 


250  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

rates  or  even  less  (except  when  the  value  of  the  author's* 
name  is  added  to  it,  or  when  the  author  turns  it  in  on  a 
contract). 

Now,  even  the  best  writer  cannot  produce  steadily- 
fine  specimens  of  the  more  profitable  style;  and  the  fairly 
skilful  one  may  count  himself  fortunate  if  he  can  hit  it 
off  once  in  four  tries.  Hence  there  are  only  two  roads 
to  money-making:  the  author  may  make  his  few  fine 
stories  so  very  fine  that  they  earn  him  a  reputation  which 
will  be  added  in  dollars  and  cents  to  his  less  admired 
output;  or,  on  the  other  hand,  he  may  invent  an  enormous 
number  of  stories,  write  them  without  much  attention 
to  finish,  and  make  *  quick  sales  and  small  profits'. 
Most  professional  writers  choose  the  second  course  in  the 
beginning  of  their  careers,  and  by  sheer  bulk  of  produc- 
tion acquire  a  facile  technique,  a  sense  of  story  values 
and  of  public  taste,  and  a  variety  of  information  about 
life  which,  sooner  or  later,  enable  them  to  enter  upon 
the  other,  pleasanter  path.  This  may  not  be  the  course 
of  genius,  but  it  is  that  of  the  craftsman;  and  it  is  to  the 
craftsman  that  this  book  is  directed. 

In  the  light  of  all  this,  we  may  estimate  the  writer's 
chances  of  success  as  follows: 

The  earning  power  of  an  author  depends  upon  three 

\J  factors:    {!)   his  sympathy  with  contemporary  tastes  and 

\    thought;  {2)  the  quantity  of  his  monthly  output;  and  (-5) 

\   the  ease  of  his  technique.     A  marked  decrease  in  any  one 

^  of  these  must  he  offset  hy  an  increase  in  one  or  both  of  the 

others,  if  success  is  to  he  assured. 

Figures  are  dangerous  here;  but  I  venture  to  say  that 
the  person  who,  after  a  thorough  study  of  technique,  cannot 
write  every  month  at  least  two  stories  of  average  magazine 
length  (4,500  words,  say)  should  not  aspire  to  become 
a  professional.  I  do  not  say  that  he  must  be  able  to 
sell  two  stories  a  month,  nor  that  all  that  he  writes  at  this 


THE  BUSINESS  OF  THE  SHORT  STORY         251 

speed  shall  wholly  please  him.  The  measure  is  adjusted 
only  to  his  narrative  composition.  If  he  can  hold  the 
pace,  he  probably  has  his  technique  well  enough  in  hand 
to  justify  further  efforts;  and  also  his  imagination  is  Hkely 
to  be  moderately  vigorous.  If  he  cannot  hold  it,  he  still 
may  join  the  great  majority,  who  write  occasionally. 
This  course  may  turn  out  to  be  quite  advantageous. 
If  a  school  teacher,  let  us  say,  can  sell  only  five  good 
stories  a  year,  that  adds  from  five  hundred  dollars  to  a 
thousand  or  more  to  the  annual  income. 

10.  The  writer  who  has  difiiculty  in  placing  his  stories 
finds  two  parties  eager  to  accelerate  his  rise  into  pub- 
licity. There  is  the  pay-as-you-enter  publishing  house, 
and  there  is  the  literary  agent.  The  former  agrees  to 
put  the  author's  collection  of  stories  on  the  market,  if 
the  author  will  kindly  pay  all  the  costs  and  a  handsome 
profit  to  the  publisher.  Usually  the  contract  he  is  asked 
to  sign  is  so  worded  that  the  author  does  not  foresee  the 
sums  he  will  owe.  Also,  he  will  not  discover  until  too 
late  that  printing  a  book  is  not  the  same  as  publishing  it. 
The  former  process  can  be  done  by  anybody  having  access 
to  type  and  presses;  the  latter  is  possible  only  to  those  who 
have  access  to  the  public.  To  reach  readers  is  not  at  all 
simple;  indeed,  it  is  intricate,  expensive,  and  largely  a 
matter  of  having  a  long-lived  reputation  back  of  the  firm 
name.  The  decline  of  the  small  bookstore  has  made  it  all 
the  harder,  and  so  too  has  the  huge  expansion  of  book- 
advertising  campaigns.  Now,  with  possibly  one  exception, 
all  those  publishers — so-called — who  offer  to  print  at  the 
author's  expense  lack  some  one  or  more  of  the  requisites 
of  genuine  publicity;  and  the  vast  majority  of  them  are 
mere  job  printers  preying  upon  ignorant  writers. 

As  a  rule  all  publishing  houses  worthy  of  the  name  refuse 
to  produce  fiction  at  the  author's  expense.  They  can 
better  employ  their  staff  in  finding  and  publishing  works 


252  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

which  warrant  their  assuming  the  natural  business  risks 
of  investment  in  them.  This  practice  not  only  con- 
tributes to  their  reputation  and  profits,  in  the  long  run, 
but  it  also  serves  society  well.  For  a  book  which  is 
worth  publishing  at  all  is  worth  its  cost  to  the  publisher 
and  the  venture  of  it.  And  there  are  so  many  good  pub- 
lishers and  so  many  acute  judges  of  all  orders  of  literary 
merit  assisting  them  that  the  chance  of  a  meritorious 
volume  being  rejected  by  all  of  them  is  probably  less 
than  one  in  a  thousand.  The  beginner  may  safely 
conclude  that  something  serious  is  the  matter  with  his 
collection  of  stories  (or  whatever  else  he  may  offer),  if 
it  has  gone  the  rounds  of  the  large  publishing  houses  in 
vain.     At  the  very  least,  the  MS.  is  untimely. 

11.  The  story  writer,  however,  is  not  interested  so 
deeply  as  is  the  novelist  in  pay-as-you-enter  publishing 
schemes;  for  his  natural  avenue  to  fame  is  the  magazine. 
He  accordingly  gives  more  thought  to  the  advertisements 
of  the  literary  agent,  who  claims  to  market  his  wares 
more  expeditiously  and  more  profitably  than  he  can.  A 
little  experience,  though,  shows  that  the  agent's  services 
are  usually  confined  to  (1)  collecting  the  author's  rejec- 
tion slips,  thereby  sparing  him  much  agony;  and  (2) 
typewriting  his  MSS.  and  doing  it  over  and  over,  as 
fast  as  the  poor  things  become  frayed  and  thumb-branded 
under  much  editorial  handling.  In  fairness,  be  it  added 
that  some  agents  do  more  than  this,  in  that  they  sell 
great  quantities  of  inferior  material  to  fourth-rate  peri- 
odicals, to  the  newspaper  syndicates,  and  to  picayune 
sheets  in  the  back-country,  the  very  names  of  which  are 
known  only  to  the  compilers  of  the  Pubhsher's  Directory. 
The  prices  secured  in  these  markets  sometimes 
cover  the  cost  of  paper,  postage,  and  typewriting.  Never- 
theless, the  beginner  may  be  thankful  for  this  much, 
which  is  more  than  the  learner  in  painting,  sculpture, 


THE  BUSINESS  OF  THE  SHORT  STORY         253 

and  music  can  earn.  In  all  seriousness,  I  believe  that 
the  literary  agent  who  renders  such  service  is  a  benefactor 
of  youth.  Only  let  youth  understand  that  the  MSS. 
so  disposed  of  are  school  exercises,  nothing  more.  They 
are  not  potential  ornaments  of  The  Atlantic  Monthly  or 
Everybody's  Magazine  or  Collier's  Weekly. 

In  gaining  entry  to  periodicals  of  quality,  the  literary 
agent  can  accomplish  nothing  that  the  writer  cannot  do 
for  himself  with  persistence.  The  editor  will  buy  from 
the  agent  only  what  suits  the  purposes  of  the  magazine; 
and  he  would  buy  it,  whether  it  came  to  him  through  the 
mail  or  through  the  window.  Furthermore,  he  is  quite 
competent  to  discover  good  stuff  in  the  midst  of  the 
stream  of  trash  which  pours  in  upon  him  daily  from  the 
Post  Office.  The  better  the  magazine,  the  more  thorough 
its  system  of  reading  contributions  and  appraising  them. 
Several  magazines  hold  conferences  over  MSS.  about 
which  some  of  the  office  readers  are  doubtful ;  and  not  a 
few  stories  are  inspected  half  a  dozen  times  before  ac- 
ceptance or  rejection.  What  cause,  then,  has  the  author 
to  complain  of  inattention  and  to  invoke  the  literary 
agent  to  plead  his  case?  Nothing  save  his  own  unbusiness- 
like habits  drives  him  to  that  course.  If  he  allows  a  re- 
jection slip  to  discourage  him;  if,  having  received  one  or 
two,  he  sends  the  MS.  no  further;  and  if  he  sends  it  on 
and  on  without  having  observed  the  preferences  of  each 
recipient  periodical,  then  he  ought  to  fall  back  upon  the 
literary  agent.  For  the  agent  is  at  least  a  shrewd  drummer. 

12.  In  closing,  I  shall  list  a  few  elementary  rules  and 
warnings  which  the  beginner  must  respect  quite  religiously. 

1.  Typewrite  all  MSS.  (on  one  side  of  the  paper). 
Handwriting  is  little  short  of  an  insult  to  the  editor. 

2.  At  the  top  of  the  first  page  print  your  name  and 
address. 


V 


/ 


254  SHORT  STORY  WRITING 

3.  Enclose  stamps  for  return  of  MS. 

4.  Forward  MSS.  to  the  magazine,  not  to  some  in- 
dividual on  the  editorial  staff  (unless  you  have  unusual 
reasons  and  warrant). 

5.  Study  the  various  periodicals;  learn  what  they  prefer 
and  what  they  discard.  Before  sending  out  a  story,  ask 
yourself  whether  it  is  suited  in  theme  and  in  treatment 
to  the  magazine  it  is  addressed  to. 

6.  Never  retire  a  MS.  to  the  waste  basket  until  you 
have  sent  it  in  vain  to  every  publication  which  might 
be  expected  to  consider  it.  Fifteen  editors  may  reject, 
and  the  sixteenth  accept  it. 

7.  Keep  a  memorandum  of  all  comments  passed  upon 
each  storj^  by  editors.  This  will  help  you  to  grasp  the 
editorial  policy  of  many  a  periodical,  in  time. 

8.  Do  not  work  too  long  consecutively  upon  a  story 
that  refuses  to  come  out  right.  Put  it  aside  for  a  few 
weeks  or  months,  then  return  to  it  fresh.  This  rule 
holds  good  for  all  kinds  of  intensive  intellectual  work. 
Many  a  man  handicaps  himself  heavily  by  making  a 
virtue  of  sticking  at  a  task  until  it  is  finished.  Modern 
psychology  has  proved  that  this  is  the  wrong  way  to 
work,  and  modern  business  experts  have  confirmed  the 
proof  in  practice. 

9.  Form  some  habit  of  regular  work.  What  it  shall 
be  you  alone  can  decide;  only  let  it  be  strenuous.  Prob- 
ably four  hours  of  writing  every  day  is  the  least  you  should 
content  yourself  with  during  the  years  in  which  you  are 
mastering  technique. 

10.  Shun  classic  literature  as  a  source  of  story  ideas. 
Study  it  only  for  the  pleasure  of  it  and  for  information 
about  technique  and  rhetoric. 

11.  Read  current  magazines  carefully,  even  those 
which  you  dislike.  Watch  the  work  of  the  more  success- 
ful writers.     Compare  their  themes  with  those  which 


THE  BUSINESS  OF  THE  SHORT  STORY         255 


/ 


are  being  discussed  by  essayists,  journalists,  politicians, 
social  workers,  and  other  men  of  the  world.  Observe 
to  what  extent  fiction  draws  upon  science,  reform,  and 
practical  affairs  for  its  underlying  thoughts. 

12.  If  you  have  the  slightest  difficulty  in  expressing  your- 
self, study  the  dictionary  and  a  good  thesaurus  persistently. 

13.  Practise  self-criticism.  Try  to  read  your  own 
MSS.  coldly  and  with  detachment.  But,  better  still, 
find  a  friend  or  some  professional  critic  who  will  pass  honest, 
frank  judgment  upon  them.  The  value  of  such  criticism, 
even  though  it  be  inexpert,  can  scarcely  be  over-estimated, 
provided  you  take  praise  and  blame  in  the  right  spirit. 

14.  Keep  some  record  of  every  story  idea  that  pops  !/ 
into  your  head,  no  matter  how  silly  or  highflown  or 
clumsy  it  may  be  in  its  original  form.  Infinite  are  the 
possibilities  of  combining,  weaving,  and  twisting  thoughts; 
and  what  the  result  will  be  no  man  can  foretell.  Some 
great  stories  have  had  trivial,  even  ludicrous  origins. 

15.  Expect  to  spend  at  least  ty^qjiard  years  on  tech- 
'nique  before  acquiring  noticeable  facility  of  story  con- 
struction. Not  one  writer  in  fifty  spends  less  than 
that  period,  though  many  deceive  themselves  into  be- 
lieving otherwise.  To  some  the  warning  should  be  given 
that  their  writing  will  deteriorate  sadly  during  the  first 
year.  In  this  there  is  no  cause  for  alarm  or  despair;  it 
is  a  very  natural  consequence  of  shifting  one's  point  of 
view  toward  what  one  is  doing.  The  very  same  seeming 
disaster  overtakes  the  person  who,  having  learned  to 
play  the  piano  by  ear  and  without  instruction,  takes  a 
thorough  course  in  fingering  and  sight  reading.  For  a 
while  he  cannot  even  play  his  old  familiar  pieces. 


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